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EDUCATION 

The Basis of Democracy 


BY 

H. H. CHERRY 

it 

PRESIDENT WESTERN STATE TEACHERS COLLEGE 
BOWLING GREEN, KENTUCKY 



D. C. HEATH AND COMPANY 

BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO LONDON 
ATLANTA DALLAS SAN FRANCISCO 


Ldio^t 

.C.5 




Copyright, 1926, 

By D. C. Heath and Company 
2 e 6 



PRINTED IN U.S.A. 


JUNl 7'26 

V 

©Cl A891822 


V 


If we work upon marble, it will per¬ 
ish; if we work upon brass, time will 
efface it; if we rear temples, they will 
crumble into dust; but if we work upon 
immortal souls, if we imbue them with 
principles, with the fear of God and 
love of fellow men, we engrave on those 
tablets something which brightens all 
eternity. — Daniel Webster. 


iii 



DEDICATED 


TO 

THE FORTY-THREE THOUSAND OR MORE STUDENTS 
WHO HAVE ATTENDED THE INSTITUTION 
OVER WHICH I HAVE PRESIDED 
DURING THE PAST THIRTY- 
FOUR YEARS. 



PREFACE 


I have been induced to assemble the ma¬ 
terial in this book by the following resolu¬ 
tions which were passed by the student-body 
of the Western Kentucky State Teachers Col¬ 
lege and Normal School at chapel exercises on 
August 6, 1925: 

For thirty years and more students have sat in 
chapel, first in the old building under the Hill and then 
in the great chapel on College Heights, listening to a 
voice that reached to the remotest corners of that 
great room. Here, so listening, more than forty thou¬ 
sand young men and young women have caught a 
vision that transformed their lives. Here they heard 
impassioned appeals for noble living, saw homely 
pictures of country life painted in unforgettable words, 
and were dazzled by outbursts of imagination that 
flamed across the barriers of time and space — all 
that lifts the spirit above despair and strengthens it 
for the grim struggle of life. 

Of this and more have we for many years been the 
beneficiaries. Therefore, it has occurred to some of us 
that President Cherry might be inclined to glean from 
whatever notes he may have preserved, and from his 
memory, outstanding passages from these chapel talks, 
and to put them into some permanent form for the 
benefit of other generations when his voice shall have 
been stilled. 

vii 


PREFACE 


viii 

And so we, the student-body, in Chapel Hall as¬ 
sembled, join in an earnest appeal to President Cherry 
that he gather up as far as possible the shining frag¬ 
ments of these past utterances and leave them as a 
precious legacy to all future sojourners on our beloved 
hill. 

The richest experiences of my life have 
come to me through the privilege of associat¬ 
ing and working with the thousands of young 
men and women who have attended the insti¬ 
tution over which I have presided. This great 
body of earnest men and women have been a 
real inspiration in my life and have always 
been most active, constructive, and sacrificing 
in their efforts to have a better citizenship 
through a better education. Modesty has 
caused me to hesitate to publish the above 
resolutions, but I am sure the reader will 
understand that I have embodied them in this 
preface in order that the public may know 
the spirit that has controlled me in the prep¬ 
aration of the manuscript. 

We hear much about a government that will 
introduce freedom and opportunity to every 
citizen in the land, and many programs, plat¬ 
forms, and propositions are presented as 
though Democracy were a thing to be brought 
into existence by some magic process, as 


PREFACE 


IX 


though it were a thing to be set up and nailed 
together like a house. We sometimes forget 
that our government is a spiritual life — an 
aggregate human thought that must grow 
from within, and if we would attain unto a 
full-grown government, we must attain unto 
a full-grown citizenship, and if we would at¬ 
tain unto a full-grown citizenship, we must 
attain unto a full-grown Democracy, and if we 
would attain unto a full-grown Democracy, 
we must have an educational program that 
will reach every home in the land and inspire 
efficient life in every honorable occupation and 
endeavor. 

The mission of education is to interpret 
Democracy into life by aiding the people in 
developing healthy bodies, poised and trained 
minds, and sound consciences — the hope and 
future of Democracy. Its mission is to aid 
the child in making a larger preparation for 
service and appreciation and to secure more 
and better training and equipment for life’s 
work. Education should work on the individ¬ 
ual, the unit of Democracy, until the ideals 
of Democracy are expressed in his thoughts, 
his property, and his conduct. Its purpose is 
to illuminate the country with intelligence and 
integrity, with principles and ideals, and with 


X 


PREFACE 


optimism and good health. “The grandeur of 
nations is in those qualities which constitute 
the true greatness of the individual.” 

These fundamental principles have guided 
me in the preparation of the subject matter 
of this book, and have prompted me to put 
special emphasis upon the obligations and re¬ 
sponsibilities of being an American citizen. 
The following chapters are largely addresses 
and parts of addresses made at various times 
before students assembled at the chapel exer¬ 
cises in the institution over which I have pre¬ 
sided. They are largely the result of an 
experience as the executive head of this insti¬ 
tution covering a period of thirty-four years. 
I hope the public will accept the book in the 
same spirit in which it has been written. 

I am greatly indebted to Honorable C. U. 
McElroy for suggested criticisms and for the 
generous interest he has manifested in writing 
the introduction to this book. I am also 
deeply grateful to Dr. M. A. Leiper, head of 
the English Department of this institution, 
who has read the entire manuscript and made 
many valuable suggestions for its improve¬ 
ment. 

H. H. Cherry 

Bowling Green, Kentucky. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface. vii 

Foreword by C. U. McElroy.xiii 

I. Mirrors of Democracy. 3 

II. Democracy and Waste. 6 

III. Angling in the Deep. 11 

IV. America and Christianity. 18 

V. Health, a Necessity in a Democracy ... 27 

VI. Knowledge. 35 

VII. “That Other Thing”. 43 

VIII. The Unit of Democracy. 52 

IX. Patriotism. 59 

X. Occupation and Endeavors. 67 

XI. Democracy’s Growth. 76 

XII. Individuality and Ideas. 83 

XIII. Public Opinion and Laws. 89 

XIV. Political Parties. 96 

XV. The Ballot Box.102 

XVI. Democracy and Public Education.Ill 

XVII. The School in a Democracy.125 

XVIII. The Teacher and Democracy.134 

XIX. Education and Commercialism.145 

XX. Invisible Capital.154 

XXI. Goals and Detours.165 

XXII. Hill Top Epigrams and Paragraphs. . . . 178 

xi 

























FOREWORD 


This little volume is unique in the realm 
of books. As indicated in the preface, and, 
as is manifested from the text, the book is 
based largely upon chapel talks delivered by 
President Cherry from time to time to the 
students of the State Teachers College and 
Normal School. 

In these plain practical talks he attempted to 
teach no new philosophy, he endeavored to 
promulgate no novel theories, and strove for 
no mere literary display. 

Each chapter is, as each talk was, distinct 
from and unconnected with all others which 
precede or follow; and yet through them all 
there runs, as it were, a silken thread connect¬ 
ing each chapter with the other. 

Throughout the whole series of chapters is 
heard an earnest voice trying to reach and stir 
the voiceless, hoping to receive back an an¬ 
swering echo; and there is felt the endeavors of 
an earnest soul to get a response from the 
souls of others. In each talk is recognized a 
leader with a broad vision endeavoring to help 
others to catch the vision he himself has seen. 

xiii 


XIV 


FOREWORD 


Eminently practical, and adjusting his 
thought to the capacity and capabilities of his 
students, President Cherry has sought to im¬ 
press upon them the necessity of having a 
sound and properly educated mind in a sound 
and healthy body; the necessity of building 
character as the basis of all true life; the 
necessity of having high ideals and an ever 
expanding vision; the necessity of self-de¬ 
pendence and self-help, supplemented by a 
self-sacrifice whenever demanded; the neces¬ 
sity of cultivating the spirit of loyalty to 
country, purity in politics, and unselfishness 
in all the affairs of life; the necessity of lofty 
aspirations and a determination on the part 
of students to make a great state by making 
every unit composing the state a self-respect¬ 
ing, useful, and properly educated citizen — 
all crowned by the necessity of recognizing 
God as supreme over all, and Christ as the 
founder of moral law and the founder of 
Democracy in its broadest sense. 

The excellency of this book is found in the 
lofty spirit which permeates it, the zeal with 
which the author endeavors to mold the 
character of the student, to give him high 
ideals and a broad vision, and to impress upon 
him the fact that if he fails in his life work and 


FOREWORD 


xv 


it is wasted, he suffers as an individual, and 
the world is that much poorer by reason of his 
failure and his wasted life; but if he succeeds, 
whether his occupation be ever so lowly, or 
ever so exalted, he will be honored by his fel¬ 
lows, and the world will be better for his having 
lived in it. 

True education does not consist alone in 
mastering science, mathematics, history, lan¬ 
guage, philosophy, and other subjects supposed 
to stand for a liberal education; but in addi¬ 
tion to these subjects education consists in the 
possession of certain homely virtues, such as 
honesty, truthfulness, temperance, righteous¬ 
ness, and benevolence, without which educa¬ 
tion, however broad may be its scope, may 
prove a curse rather than a blessing and a 
hindrance to the attainment of a noble man¬ 
hood rather than a help. 

Doubtless this book will be read by very 
many of the former students of the State 
Teachers College and Normal School, and it 
will pleasantly recall to their memory the 
chapel talks which very largely gave stability 
to their character and a right direction to their 
respective life work. 

And doubtless it will also be largely read 
by the present student-body, who will be 


xvi FOREWORD 

stimulated by its suggestions and helped in 
their labors by catching the vision of their 
president, and will live up to the ideals which 
have inspired his life and made his life work 
the conspicuous success it is. 

Others, not of the student-body, will doubt¬ 
less be attracted to it as a plea for good 
citizenship, for moral as well as academic edu¬ 
cation, for integrity of character, for noble 
conceptions and high ideals, for a broad philan¬ 
thropy, for a spirituality instead of mere 
materialism and as a plea for loyalty to duty, 
loyalty to our fellow men, and loyalty to a 
Democracy based on an education which is 
not confined to mere book knowledge alone. 

Except in the methods employed, it may be 
that in these chapel talks there is little that 
is new; nevertheless, there is in them nothing 
that is not both helpful and true. 

C. U. McElroy 


EDUCATION: 


THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 



CHAPTER I 
MIRRORS OF DEMOCRACY 

Democracy is a principle which is mani¬ 
fested in the conduct of every unit of an ideal 
state. 

It is “a tree planted by the rivers of water, 
that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his 
leaves shall not wither; and whatsoever he 
doeth shall prosper.” 

It is a soldier in time of war, or in time of 
peace, who puts the ideals and principles of free¬ 
dom above everything, the comfort and pros¬ 
perity of all of the people above personal com¬ 
fort and prosperity, and justice above life. In 
this way he “goes over the top” for home 
and country. 

It is a well-ordered and sweet-spirited home 
that points every member of the household and 
every human being to Christ and the flag. 

It is a land dotted with good schools taught 
by consecrated and qualified teachers and 
crowded by boys and girls preparing for 
spiritual and intellectual enjoyment and for 
effective service in the occupations they are 
to pursue. 


4 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

It is a land of Christian ideals, of good 
churches, and of good roads leading from 
neighbor to neighbor and from everywhere to 
the church, the school, and the market. 

It is a great hospital that has eyes that see, 
a heart that feels, and hands that seek the 
afflicted and the suffering everywhere, and 
administers to them aiding nature in restoring 
health, hope, and vitality. 

It is a farm with a democratic farmer behind 
it, where every inch of the soil is fertilized with 
constructive brains and an expanding con¬ 
science. Such a farm will yield an abundant 
harvest to be transmuted into a larger indi¬ 
vidual home and community life. 

It is a landlord who not only is interested in 
increasing his own bank account and in adding 
to his personal holdings, but who sacrificingly 
aids his tenants in offering an adequate educa¬ 
tion to their children and in having the com¬ 
forts of life, a tract of land, and a home of their 
own. 

It is a capitalist who shares the profits of 
his great industrial enterprise with his coun¬ 
try, with his flag, and with those who helped 
him to make his business a success. 

It is a business that treats the employee as 
a human being and not as a commercial asset, 


MIRRORS OF DEMOCRACY 


5 


sharing its prosperity with those who con¬ 
tribute to its success. 

It is a land where human work, worth, and 
service are recognized by society, and where 
the social and industrial standards are made 
in the image of justice. 

It is a political party whose administration 
puts public service above personal interest, 
the country above the party, and the party 
above jobs, one that has a vision of human 
needs and a purpose and initiative that will 
interpret its vision into deeds, and one that has 
a program of action vitalized through and 
through with patriotic leadership. 

It is a voter who carries his ballot in a demo¬ 
cratic conscience when he goes to the voting 
booth to cast his ballot. 

It is a state where honor rules, where moral, 
intellectual, and industrial initiative is en¬ 
couraged, and where individuality is enthroned 
and justice is crowned. 

It is you when, in possession of a healthy 
body, mind, and heart, you travel from the 
spiritual shallows toward the spiritual blue 
deep, from the small American effort to the 
larger American effort — learning, loving, 
serving, and executing the responsibilities of 
American citizenship. 


CHAPTER II 
DEMOCRACY AND WASTE 

Democracy is composed of human beings 
capable of growth or of degeneration, of in¬ 
telligent patriotism or of anarchy, of good 
government or of bad government, of waste 
or of thrift, of physical health or of disease. 
Every citizen is either pouring the red blood 
of a larger Democracy into the arteries of a 
greater community, or he is injuring its health 
and reducing its vitality. Every human being 
is either an asset or a liability. It is, therefore, 
a wise statesmanship that seeks to stop all 
forms of waste by operating upon the human 
being, the unit of Democracy. 

Most of the leaks through which social and 
economic waste passes are in the individual, 
and they will continue to cause endless waste 
until stopped by a diffusion in the lives of the 
people of effective power for human work and 
service in their chosen endeavor. Democracy 
recognizes this principle of human progress and 
seeks, through a diffusion of intelligence and 
Christian integrity, to bring the great mass of 
people together into a commonwealth of inter- 
6 


DEMOCRACY AND WASTE 7 

dependent, associated common life where the 
poor and the rich receive justice, where the 
importance of every human being and every 
honorable endeavor is emphasized, and where 
all of the people are given an opportunity 
to enjoy freedom and to be prosperous and 
happy. 

Spiritual unity and magnetic material prog¬ 
ress, the dual fundamental necessities of 
thrift, are poured into democratic communi¬ 
ties through the thoughts and character of 
the people. Reduced to its last analysis, the 
triumph of Democracy depends upon its 
ability to increase efficiency and to reduce 
waste. This can be accomplished through 
the work of growing citizens who possess pro¬ 
ductive capacity and moral and intellectual 
leadership. 

If there is a peril that threatens Democracy, 
it is the peril of waste, the waste that flows 
from cloudy human visions, low ideals, and 
penny ideas; the waste that flows from dis¬ 
ease, ignorance, and illiteracy; the waste that 
flows from the home where there is no vision, 
no library, no parental authority, no Bible, 
no Christ; the waste that flows from the 
negative and neglected school and the semi¬ 
religious life; the waste that flows from the 


8 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

community where public sentiment is asleep 
and where the lawbreaker and all other ene¬ 
mies to the ideals of freedom live without any 
fear of being disturbed by a militant public 
sentiment; the waste that flows from crime, 
political hatred, the rule of prejudice, and 
machine politics; the waste that flows from 
the failure of thousands of its citizens engaged 
in agricultural pursuits to apply modern meth¬ 
ods in their efforts and to give the soil, which 
is the source of all wealth, scientific cultiva¬ 
tion, and treatment; the waste that flows from 
poor roads, from unproductive, unprofitable, 
and neglected business, and from thriftless 
professions. 

The development of personal efficiency in 
the individual is the one great problem before 
the American people. Add to the right kind 
of education, and we subtract from spiritual 
and industrial waste; add to the home, and we 
subtract from crime, moral desolation, and 
industrial want; add to the church, and we 
subtract from sin and from social disorders of 
all kinds; add to the school, and we subtract 
from the number of inmates in the jails and 
penitentiaries, and from the enormous expense 
paid annually for criminal prosecutions and 
for the support of human defectives; add to 


DEMOCRACY AND WASTE 


9 


the number of teachers who are armed with 
health, intelligence, and character, and we 
subtract from the number of policemen armed 
with billets; add to the employer, and we 
subtract from the difficulties of the employee, 
from social and industrial inefficiency, and 
frequently from the hostile attitude of the 
employee toward his employer; add to the 
employee, and we subtract from sickness and 
want and frequently from strikes and labor 
agitations; add to good roads, and we sub¬ 
tract from isolation, illiteracy, poverty, and 
crime; add to every effort and agency of life 
that will aid all of the people in the acqui¬ 
sition of personal efficiency, and we will pro¬ 
vide for their needs and enlarge their capacity 
for enjoyment, and, at the same time, build 
up the civic, social, and economic life of 
the community; add to personal efficiency 
through democratic education, and we w ill ad¬ 
vance the spiritual and material empire; but 
subtract from education, and we will destroy 
life and material productivity and bring want 
and woe to the people. 

It is true that Democracy cannot force the 
citizen to be a success in life, but it can knock 
at the door of every home in the land and offer 
the citizen a chance to have more life and more 


10 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

of the material blessings of this world. It 
cannot put bread in all of the hungry mouths, 
but it can, through a constructive policy, light 
up human lives, human endeavors, and dark 
hovels and show the people how they may have 
more spiritual and material bread and more of 
the comforts and conveniences of this life. It 
cannot increase the yield on the farm, but it 
can offer agricultural instruction and informa¬ 
tion that will visualize agriculture, teach the 
farmer how he may increase his yield, and show 
him that the crops that grow upon his ma¬ 
terial fields are photographs of the crops that 
were first grown upon the fields of his soul. It 
cannot restore life to the loved one who died 
from a preventable disease, but it can foster 
good health through the development of a 
civic patriotism and teach others how they 
may avoid dying from the same cause. 


CHAPTER III 
ANGLING IN THE DEEP 

A boy used a thread, a minnow hook, and 
a piece of worm and fished in a minnow hole. 
This little pool of water was located under the 
roots of a large sycamore tree which stood by 
the bank of a creek that had its source in the 
eternal hills and, after winding down the hill¬ 
sides, silently wormed its way to the great sea. 
If he had fished there all of his life, he would 
never have caught anything but minnows, be¬ 
cause only minnows inhabited that hole of 
water. If he had not equipped himself with 
the right kind of fishing tackle and had not 
gone to the larger waters to cast his line, hook, 
and bait for larger fish, he would never have 
known the difference between the feeble tug 
of a minnow and the exciting, exhilarating pull 
of a larger fish. He heard a call, however, to 
leave the minnow hole for the larger waters, 
the smaller life for the larger life; and in obe¬ 
dience to the law of his own nature and to the 
voice of his own democratic conscience, he 
made a trial of his faith in the larger and 

deeper waters and became a noted fisherman. 

11 


12 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

When God created many kinds of anglers 
and many kinds of waters and filled the waters 
with many kinds of fish, he prepared the way 
for human initiative and Democracy. Angling 
in a Democracy is a universal occupation. It 
belongs to humanity. It is innate in the hu¬ 
man being. Every citizen is without choice an 
angler. He is catching something, whether he 
wants to or not. 

Launching out into the deep and angling for 
a larger catch is the nature of the soul. What 
the soul desires is not a harbor of refuge but 
the larger freedom, opportunities, adventures, 
and achievements of the open sea. There is 
a smaller capacity and a larger capacity, a 
smaller achievement and a larger achievement, 
in every democratic occupation and endeavor. 
The soul inherently desires the larger expe¬ 
rience. 

The citizen of a Democracy who invests the 
talents he possesses and uses his opportunities 
for God and country is a real American angler. 
If he does this and catches sunfish, he is as 
good an American as the angler who catches 
bass and tarpon. 

When all things are equal, the angler who 
catches trout in a mountain stream is a better 
Christian and a better American than the 


ANGLING IN THE DEEP 


13 


angler who catches sunfish in a pond. The 
real criteria by which one may judge such an 
individual’s achievements are the motives, the 
talents, the efforts, and the opportunities of 
the angler. 

The more abundant life and the more abun¬ 
dant Democracy, like a sea, lie beyond. 
Democracy’s first duty and necessity is to 
visualize the future and give the angler an 
opportunity to equip himself with a fishing 
tackle that will lure, catch, and hold the gam- 
est fish that inhabits the waters in which he 
expects to fish. 

There are many kinds of anglers, many kinds 
of waters, and many kinds of fish. The angler 
may, if he desires, fish in the smaller waters 
and catch small fish, or he may throw his line 
in the larger waters and catch large fish. Some 
anglers are using inadequate equipment and 
are fishing in stagnant ponds, while others are 
using the best equipment and are fishing in 
running rivers and expanding seas. Making 
this decision is the angler’s responsibility. 
God himself cannot keep him from fishing in 
small waters and from using inadequate equip¬ 
ment or rotten lines. 

A real American is an angler who equips 
himself with a fishing tackle that has a soul in 


14 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

it and, putting boldly out upon the spiritual 
blue deep, catches fish and has a desire, a pur¬ 
pose, and a will to catch more and larger fish 
by adding to his fishing equipment. Then he 
launches farther out, and still farther out into 
the deep. 

If the citizen of a Democracy will permit it 
and will do his part nobly, the real invisible 
angler that is frequently sleeping within him 
will awake and make a real fishing boat. He 
will weave into the texture of his fishing tackle 
the weight, the strength, and the pull of the 
larger fish — the thrills of a more abundant 
life. 

Successful angling must be accomplished 
through the processes of the soul of the angler. 
The angler’s boat, oars, fishing tackle, bait, 
lure, and the oarsman are in the angler, and 
they must be formed and fashioned in his own 
soul. 

The efforts of the angler to make a real fish¬ 
ing tackle becomes a joyous task, a real privi¬ 
lege and inspiration, when he brings the future 
into the present, visualizes the sea alive with 
big fish, and lives in a world of imaginative 
thrills. 

When vitalized with progressive objectives 
and the thrills that come from a vision of the 


ANGLING IN THE DEEP 15 

future, the work of acquiring an education be¬ 
comes a pleasure. Preparing for a fishing 
cruise is a drudgery unless we catch fish in the 
world of self while preparing for the cruise and 
before going to the larger waters. The boy 
enjoys digging bait and is not a bad boy when 
he feels the thrills that come from giving up 
the feeble tug of the minnow for the thrilling 
pull of the mountain trout. 

The big fish in a Democracy are caught by 
the angler who follows a vision, the spiritual 
blueprints and the specifications of his own 
soul. Nature is the expert angler’s laboratory. 
He knows no inflexible rule. He is guided by 
the faith and inspiration that comes from the 
larger education and experience and the mag¬ 
nificence that comes from seeking the un¬ 
known. “He who embarks upon the voyage 
of life,” writes Johnson, “will always wish to 
advance by the impulse of the wind rather 
than by the strokes of the oar, and many 
flounder in their passage while they lie waiting 
for the gale.” 

The real angler realizes that he can catch 
and land an eighty-pound fish on a line that 
would break under a dead weight of eighteen 
pounds, and he carries with him the sixty-two 
pounds of extra equipment. This extra equip- 


16 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

ment is called many things by many people. 
We shall for the present call it “that other 
thing,” which is discussed elsewhere in this 
book. 

The contentment of the people with their 
chosen work depends largely upon intelligent 
effort and upon a spiritualization of their 
motives and occupations. Thousands of citi¬ 
zens are changing occupations because they 
are fishing for small life and do not know it. 
The angler will unconsciously turn to gloomy 
anticipation of the future unless his occupa¬ 
tion calls him out of himself. “Good actions 
ennoble us, and we are the sons of our own 
deeds.” In the last analysis, the catch is the 
angler. He is not likely to desert himself if 
he sees himself in a large and successful catch. 
He will not throw down his rod and leave the 
sea while he has a big fish on the end of the line. 

Morality is the nature of successful angling 
and all other worthy actions. Morality is the 
essence of launching out and feeling the swells 
and of meeting the breakers and experiencing 
the larger life. It is easier for a fisherman 
who has failed to give himself proper equip¬ 
ment, who fishes in small waters and has small 
experiences, to lose his mental poise, to be 
immoral, to commit a crime, than it is for 


ANGLING IN THE DEEP 17 

one who has invested his soul in an adequate 
fishing equipment and has the larger life and 
responsibilities. Most of the inmates of the 
asylums, jails, and penitentiaries angled for 
small life. 

Good health is the nature of successful 
angling. The average life of the man who 
fishes on the shoals is less than that of the 
one who fishes in the deep. Successful angling 
is a preventive vaccine. It is a tonic in the 
body. Good health promotes angling, and 
real angling aids the body in having good 
health. The angler is not likely to contract 
a contagious disease or to be consciously sick 
while landing a big fish. A sick body, a sick 
soul, and a small fish usually go together. 

Influence is largely inherent in personality. 
The noted fisherman returns from the waters 
with a great string of fish. His success in¬ 
spires the people on the beach of life and they 
decide to go fishing. The multitude will follow 
the angler who has just returned from the 
blue deep with a fine string of fish. Socrates 
wrote: 64 Let him that would move the world 
first move himself.” Let him that desires a 
citizenship composed of expert anglers be a 
real American angler himself. 


CHAPTER IV 
AMERICA AND CHRISTIANITY 

The true cradle of Democracy was the 
manger at Bethlehem. When the son of the 
carpenter of Nazareth brought to the world 
the gospel of the fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man, he ennobled the indi¬ 
vidual, destroyed the spirit of caste, of autoc¬ 
racy, of education for the few, of rule by force, 
and made religion, democracy, and education 
inevitable. He put the spiritual empire of the 
world above the material empire, made prin¬ 
ciples and ideals kings and queens, and called 
upon them to rule the world. 

Democracy is an ideal, a vision of the 
greater life, implanted by God and cultivated 
by man in the human breast. It has purpose 
and unity of effort. It has moral, intellectual, 
and industrial ideals and works to accomplish 
them. It is affirmative and fearless. 

The glory of Democracy is not in its mate¬ 
rial possessions, but in its ideals; not in its 
broad acres of land, its banks, railroads, and 
commerce; not in its capacity to receive, but 
in its capacity to give and its willingness to 
18 


AMERICA AND CHRISTIANITY 19 

serve humanity. Its magic is a Paul Revere 
making a midnight ride, awakening the people 
from their slumber and from a neglect of their 
opportunities, and prompting them to become 
responsible citizens, torchbearers scattering 
the red fire of democratic uplift, freedom, 
inspiration, and hope in every home in the 
land. 

The mission of Democracy is to put right 
above wrong, freedom above slavery, ideals 
above bullets, the education of the child above 
a dollar, intelligence above ignorance, a good 
school above a poor school, honest politics 
above depraved politics, the patriot above the 
demagogue, the public above a business 
transaction, and the rule of honor and justice 
above the rule of force and commercialized 
government. Its mission is to inspire citizens 
to noble deeds and to give every person a 
chance to live, a chance to grow, and an op¬ 
portunity to be prosperous and happy. 

Above the American spirit is the divine 
spirit. Democracy is not self-evolved. It is 
not mechanically made and generated by the 
hands of man. There is above Democracy a 
God, a divine Pilot, a divine personality, that 
works through human personalities. There is 
a God above man and government. “It is 


20 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

He,” writes Dr. E. L. Powell, “who breaks 
the icy bands of winter and gives to us the 
verdure and bloom of spring. It is He who 
quickens the slumbering seed in the cold earth 
and brings forth the waving harvest. The 
Lord is his name. If we shall acknowledge His 
presence in the dewdrop, which is melted by 
the rising sun, shall we deny that presence in 
the great soul movements of the race? Is He 
to be acknowledged as the God of nature and 
not as well the God of history? It is impossible 
that we should have a philosophy of history 
apart from an interpretation of the facts of 
history in the light of that divine presence 
which thrust the actors on and off the historic 
stage. If we shall have any sort of revival, 
which means the betterment even of a limited 
and local community, it shall be accomplished 
and inaugurated through the power of the 
living God.” 

God planted the seed of liberty and prog¬ 
ress in the soul. Banish Him from our hearts, 
leave Him out of our laws, programs, and en¬ 
deavors, and Democracy will fail. There is a 
divine principle within us that seeks divine 
efforts, that fixes the mind upon unseen reali¬ 
ties, and refines, softens, and ennobles the 
human soul. Democracy is not the product of 


AMERICA AND CHRISTIANITY 


21 


the thought of man. It is not a philosophy. 
It is a spirit that seeks to interpret the per¬ 
sonality of God. “Who laid, broad and deep, 
the foundations of this republic? Who gave to 
those mighty men of an older time their hopes 
and dreams and aspirations? Who implanted 
in their soul the spirit of liberty? Who led 
those splendid soldiers out on the battlefield 
to give their blood for this invisible principle? 
God.” 

Real American patriotism receives its in¬ 
spiration from invisible sources. It seeks 
guidance at the divine altar. “That patriot¬ 
ism,” said Henry Clay in one of his great ad¬ 
dresses, “which, catching its inspirations from 
the immortal God, and leaving at an im¬ 
measurable distance all lesser, groveling per¬ 
sonal interests and feelings, animates and 
promotes to deeds of self-sacrifice, of valor, of 
devotion to death itself — that is public vir¬ 
tue; that is the noblest, sublimest of public 
virtues.” 

Dr. J. G. Holland wrote: “When the people 
of France pulled down both God and the 
church and set up reason in their place, all of 
the infernal elements of human nature held 
their brief, high carnival. That one brief ex¬ 
periment should be enough for a thousand 


22 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

worlds through countless years.” History 
from the beginning of civilization to the pres¬ 
ent time teaches us that “they who plow the 
sea do not carry the winds in their hands.” 
America is at the wheel, but this alone will 
not make a safe landing for Democracy, unless 
God is with the pilot. If we would make the 
world a decent place in which to live, a garden 
suitable for the growth of the human spirit, 
we must hear the voice of the lowly Nazarene 
in our lives and in things about us and trans¬ 
late its instructions into human deeds. 

At the time the Constitutional Convention 
had worked for four weeks without writing a 
single line, without having made any visible 
progress, Benjamin Franklin arose and, ad¬ 
dressing George Washington, said: “Mr. 
President, we have gone back to ancient 
history for models of government and exam¬ 
ined the different forms of those republics 
which now no longer exist, and we have viewed 
modern states all around Europe groping in 
the dark to find political truth. How has it 
happened, sir, that we have not hitherto once 
thought of humbly applying to the Father of 
Light to illuminate our understandings? I 
have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I 
live, the more convincing proofs I see of this 


AMERICA AND CHRISTIANITY £3 

truth, that God governs the affairs of men. 
And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground 
without his notice, is it probable that an em¬ 
pire can rise without his aid? ‘Except the 
Lord build the house, they labor in vain that 
build it.’ I firmly believe this, and I also 
believe that without his compelling aid we 
shall succeed in this political building no better 
than the builders of Babylon. We shall be 
divided by our little, partial, local interests; 
oui 4 project will be confounded, and we our¬ 
selves shall become a reproach and a byword 
down to future ages. And, what is worse, 
mankind may hereafter, from this unfortu¬ 
nate instance, despair of establishing govern¬ 
ment by human wisdom and leave it to chance, 
war, conquest. I, therefore, beg leave, sir, to 
move that hereafter prayers imploring the as¬ 
sistance of heaven and its blessings upon our 
deliberations be held in the assembly every 
morning before we proceed to business, and 
that one or more of the clergy of this city be 
requested to officiate at that service.” 

From this hour progress was made, light 
shone in, and the Constitution was created. 
The candle our fathers lighted flung its light 
into a dark world. God gave us light in order 
that we might find our way from darkness to 


24 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

light, from the smaller life to the larger life. 
Charming, in one of his addresses, said: “It 
was religion which, by teaching men their near 
relation to God, awakened in them the con¬ 
sciousness of their importance as individuals. 
It was the struggles for religious rights which 
opened their eyes to all rights. It was resist¬ 
ance to religious usurpation which led men 
to withstand political oppression. It was reli¬ 
gious discussion which roused the minds of 
all classes to free and vigorous thought. It 
was religion which armed the martyr and pa¬ 
triot in England against arbitrary power; 
which braced the spirits of our fathers against 
the perils of the ocean and wilderness and sent 
them to found here the freest and most equal 
state on earth.” Political reformers whose 
lives are not lighted up by the star of Bethle¬ 
hem are unsafe pilots for the Ship of State. 

It is true that this is not a Christian nation 
in the sense of any definite legal enactment by 
the people declaring it in sympathy with an 
established church or by naming any certain 
creed or doctrine as its belief. But it is Chris¬ 
tian in the sense that it is founded upon the 
principles taught by the founder of all reli¬ 
gion. Besides, it has historically developed 
along these lines. The Mayflower Compact 


AMERICA AND CHRISTIANITY 25 

recited that its colonial standard was “for the 
glory of God and for the advancement of the 
Christian faith.” The fundamental Orders of 
Connecticut recited that they were established 
“to maintain and preserve the liberty and 
purity of the Gospel and of our Lord Jesus, 
which we now profess.” The majority of our 
state constitutions, together with the written 
declarations of personal rights emanating from 
the hundreds of patriotic associations and 
conventions held prior to the ordaining of the 
Constitution, recognized God and declared 
that all that was done was for His glory. The 
noble patriots who led in the establishment of 
our government never failed to ask His guid¬ 
ance in their efforts to perform the duties of 
any public office or trust imposed upon them. 
Washington, and all the patriots whose il¬ 
lustrious names sanctify American history, 
asked God’s direction in the convention of in¬ 
dependence and upon the battlefield. 

All this seems to be a sufficient warrant for 
calling this country a Christian nation. Our 
government enforces no religion; it makes no 
religious demands; but the heart of the na¬ 
tion has recognized Christianity from the 
beginning of independence down to the pres¬ 
ent day. “ Vindicating the right of individual- 


26 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

ity even in religion, and in religion above all, 
the new nation dares to set the example of 
accepting, in its relations to God, the principle 
first divinely ordained in Judea. It left the 
management of temporal things to the tem¬ 
poral power; but the American Constitution, 
in harmony with the people of the several 
states, withheld from the federal government 
the power to invade the home of reason, the 
citadel of conscience, the sanctuary of the 
soul; and not from indifference, but that the 
infinite spirit of eternal truth might move in 
its freedom and purity and power.” 


CHAPTER V 

HEALTH, A NECESSITY IN A DEMOCRACY 

Christ possessed a perfect physical body. 
He had perfect health. It is not recorded any¬ 
where that he was ever sick. He had a trained 
mind that was capable of just judgments and 
spiritual and intellectual interpretations. He 
had fellowship with God, and put service and 
love above everything. 

In order for one to be an effective citizen, 
he must have a strong body for the soul to 
work in, a trained mind, and what I shall 
call 44 that other thing.” These are the three 
big necessities of an effective citizenship, and 
they should be a part of every educational 
program and every other effort designed to 
advance the welfare of the human being. 

Horace Mann wrote: 44 All intelligent think¬ 
ers upon the subject now utterly discard and 
repudiate the idea that reading and writing, 
with a knowledge of accounts, constitute edu¬ 
cation. The lowest claim which any intelli¬ 
gent man now prefers in its behalf is that its 
domain extends over the threefold nature of 
man; over his body, training it by the sys- 

27 


28 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

tematic and intelligent observance of those 
benign laws which secure health, impart 
strength, and prolong life; over his intellect, 
invigorating the mind, replenishing it with 
knowledge, and cultivating all those tastes 
which are allied to virtue; and over his moral 
and religious susceptibilities also, dethroning 
selfishness, enthroning conscience, leading the 
affections outwardly in good-will toward man, 
and upward in gratitude and reverence to 
God.” 

Religious, moral, mental, and economic 
weaknesses are written at the bottom on each 
page of the history of the governments that 
have neglected the health of their people. 
This is no accident; it is the result of a law. 
Considered in the terms of all the people, no 
country can rise above the health of her 
people. A sick citizen may, through the power 
of the will and a militant investment of all 
his faculties, succeed in life; but if he should 
possess a sound body and make the same 
effort, he would make a far greater success. 
Not many people are strong enough to carry 
the load of a sick body and to succeed in 
spite of physical weakness. 

Transfer the health of the average citizen 
of India to the citizens of America, and there 


HEALTH, A NECESSITY IN A DEMOCRACY 29 

would be a decline in religious, moral, mental, 
and economic values. Ideals and property 
would go down, and woe and poverty would 
rise. Under these conditions it wolud be pos¬ 
sible for disease to become the ruler of the 
spirit rather than for the spirit to rule disease, 
and America would go backward rather than 
forward. The soul is the overseer of the body, 
and a state of health depends largely upon 
how the soul treats the body; yet, when con¬ 
sidered in terms of the larger group composing 
the democratic community, a state of health 
could exist that might prompt the overseer to 
spend the balance of his earthly days in a 
diseased human dungeon without making an 
effort to improve its condition. “The first 
wealth,” says Emerson, “is health. Sickness 
is poor-spirited and cannot serve any one; it 
must husband its resources to live. But 
health answers its own ends and has to spare; 
runs over and inundates the neighborhoods 
and creeks of other men’s necessities.” 

It is easier for a country that has good 
health to have religion, morality, mental pow¬ 
ers, and material possessions than it is for a 
country whose citizens are sick in body. Good 
health is the normal nature of the human 
being. Longfellow said: “If the mind, which 


30 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

rules the body, ever so far forgets itself as to 
trample on its slave, the slave is never gener¬ 
ous enough to forgive the injury but will rise 
and smite the oppressor.” 

Beecher was an earnest champion of good 
health. He never failed in his public ad¬ 
dresses to broadcast a health sentiment. In 
one of his addresses he said: “Half the spir¬ 
itual difficulties that men and women suffer 
arise from a morbid state of health. The 
physical eye and heart are affected by the 
spiritual eye and heart. Physical circulation 
and digestion aid spiritual circulation and 
digestion. Wholesome material food and 
health habits are necessary in the work of 
growing souls and healthy bodies. Sidney 
Smith wrote: “Old friendships are destroyed 
by toasted cheese, and hard salted meat has 
led to suicide. Unpleasant feelings of the body 
produce correspondent sensations of the mind, 
and a great scene of wretchedness is sketched 
out by a morsel of indigestible and misguided 
food.” 

It is a high duty of Democracy to dissemi¬ 
nate health information among the masses, to 
build up a good-health sentiment, to protect 
the people against preventable diseases, and 
to assist them in having a sanitary body for 


HEALTH, A NECESSITY IN A DEMOCRACY SI 

their minds to work in. The conservation of 
health is a spiritual and economic problem 
that is challenging every citizen of America. 
The quality of service of a citizen depends not 
only upon his knowledge and character but 
upon the condition of his health. Dr. G. Stan¬ 
ley Hall asks the question, 64 What shall it 
profit a child if he gain the whole world of 
knowledge and lose his own health?” The 
answer is voiced by Dr. Charles W. Eliot: 
“Universal physical training is the most im¬ 
portant and urgent improvement in American 
education.” In 1918 a student of good health 
wrote: 44 War has been merely an occasional 
incident in history compared with the inces¬ 
sant ravages of disease. While war has killed 
its hundreds of thousands in every generation, 
disease has destroyed its millions by the year, 
and its ravages go on perpetually. It is esti¬ 
mated that during the year 1918 the number 
of people in the world who died from prevent¬ 
able diseases alone reached the astonishing 
figure of 9,500,000. Preventable diseases are 
so deadly throughout the world that a nation 
the size of the United States is actually de¬ 
stroyed every ten years. Such diseases as 
tuberculosis, typhoid, malaria, hookworm, and 
other preventable diseases are no longer 


32 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

classed merely as diseases. They are social 
crimes. Death from such causes is man¬ 
slaughter.” 

Space will not permit a statement of the 
cost of the different preventable diseases and 
deaths, but it has been estimated by good 
authority that the total loss in the United 
States alone will exceed $3,000,000,000 an¬ 
nually. The annual economic loss from pre¬ 
ventable diseases and deaths in our working 
population alone amounts to $1,800,000,000. 
There is an experimental basis for the state¬ 
ment that this loss could be materially reduced 
and leave a balance over and above the cost 
of prevention of over $1,000,000,000 per year. 
In referring to this statement a bulletin pub¬ 
lished by the National Educational Associa¬ 
tion in December, 1922 , says: “One billion 
dollars! Almost the total expenditure, state, 
county, and municipal this year for public 
school education in the United States. Not 
only could a physical education program be 
made to pay its own way, but it would come 
very near paying for all the teachers’ salaries, 
for all the new buildings and equipment, and 
for all current expenditures, from anthracite 
coal to kindergartners’ sand, that go to make 
up the annual budget of American schools.” 


HEALTH, A NECESSITY IN A DEMOCRACY 33 


During the World War 4,650,500 men served 
in the United States Army, and 1,340,625 
were rejected for general military service on 
account of physical disability. A research 
bulletin of the National Educational Associa¬ 
tion says: “Physical incompetence was a far 
more powerful enemy to our military success 
in the World War than were the efforts of the 
opposing army. For every man put out of 
action by enemy shells, poison gas, and 
bayonets there were nearly five who never 
got into action because their physical disabil¬ 
ity made them unfit for military service. In 
order to emphasize this statement, it shows 
that while there were 1,340,625 rejected on 
account of physical disability, only 50,220 
were killed and died from wounds, and 197,950 
were wounded in action. Medical men say 
that most of the defects listed as the causes 
for rejection during the World War could have 
been prevented by adequate physical educa¬ 
tion programs.” The Chamber of Commerce 
of the United States says: “In order to pro¬ 
mote the physical well-being of all the people, 
a proper system of physical examinations and 
health instruction must be universally carried 
on in the various grades of the schools. 
Physical education presents the greatest op- 


34 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

portunity the nation has of developing na¬ 
tional power. Health instruction is the most 
vital part of the child’s education. When a 
community makes education compulsory, it 
becomes responsible for the physical as well 
as the mental welfare of the child.” 

Conserving the vitality of the people by 
stopping the pollution of streams, by observ¬ 
ing the sanitary laws of health in the home, 
in the school, in business enterprise, and else¬ 
where will contribute not only to the ideals 
and to the happiness, but to the economic 
productivity and prosperity of the people. 
“There is no iron law of mortality.” The 
average life is increased or decreased by ob¬ 
serving or neglecting the physical laws of 
health and sanitation. “Health as a rule is a 
purchasable commodity, and its price is edu¬ 
cation.” The average yearly death rate per 
one thousand people from 1815 to 1850 was 
28; from 1850 to 1900 it was 26; in 1910 it 
was 15; and in 1922 it was 11.8. This shows 
that health education and habits are increasing 
the lives of the people. Democracy comes very 
close to us when it reaches its hands out and 
saves us and our children from sickness and 
even from the grave. This it can do, does do, 
and should continue to do in a much larger 
way. 


CHAPTER VI 
KNOWLEDGE 

Democracy is an ideal that belongs to the 
universe. It is not limited by land, sea, or 
space. It has no boundary line or geography. 
It belongs to civilization. Being of a universal 
nature, it calls for a leadership that is capable 
of interpreting its principles and ideals and of 
applying them to a proper solution of the 
problems of America and the world. 

In order for one to be a real leader in a 
Democracy, it is necessary for him to have 
depth of knowledge and information in order 
to establish unity, liberty, and justice among 
the people. Daniel Webster said: “Knowl¬ 
edge has in our time triumphed, and is tri¬ 
umphing, over prejudice and over bigotry. 
The civilized and Christian world is fast learn¬ 
ing the great lesson that being of a different 
nationality does not imply necessary hostility, 
and that all contact need not be war. The 
whole world is becoming a common field for 
intellect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, 
power, wheresoever it exists, may speak in 
any tongue and the world will hear it.” 

35 


36 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

Even the possession of material wealth de¬ 
pends upon the ability of the soul to use it. 
One may have a million dollars and still be 
very poor. He is poor when he is owned by 
his money. He is rich when he owns his 
money and uses it for the good of humanity. 
“Wealth,” Ruskin said, “is the possession of 
the valuable by the valiant.” We find the 
same principle in the life and application of 
knowledge and learning. Frances Greenwood 
Peabody wrote: “ You do not become a scholar 
by accumulating information any more than 
you become rich by accumulating money. 
Truth needs a soul to interpret it as money 
needs a soul to use it. A heap of information 
is no more learning than a heap of money is 
wealth. A walking encyclopedia is no more a 
scholar than a portable safe-deposit box is a 
rich man. A man may be very learned and 
yet very stupid, just as a man may be very 
successful in making money and yet be very 
poor. The world is precious as it is owned by 
the soul.” 

Knowledge may not be even a contribution 
to a Democracy. It could be a liability rather 
than an asset. “Knowledge,” Bacon said, 
“is not a couch whereon to rest a searching 
spirit; or a terrace for a wandering mind to 


KNOWLEDGE 


37 


walk upon with a fair prospect; or a tower of 
state for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or 
a sort of commanding ground for strife and 
contention; or a shop for profit and sale, but 
a rich store house for the glory of the Creator 
and the relief of man’s estate.” 

History shows that the world has not ad¬ 
vanced beyond a leadership that possessed 
democratized knowledge. Organized infor¬ 
mation with the flag of Democracy in its hand 
has been the pioneer in most of the worthy 
human achievements. Democracy moves up¬ 
ward when knowledge and wisdom move up¬ 
ward. There is no higher form of American 
patriotism than seeking fundamental knowl¬ 
edge in order to use it to advance the prin¬ 
ciples and ideals of social and economic 
freedom. Knowledge that is not on fire is an 
intellectual degenerate. Inactive ignorance 
is a conspirator. Ignorance that is on fire is 
a mob with a torch in its hand. Knowledge 
on fire is the ideal American. 

There is a patriotism of scholarship, of or¬ 
ganized information and service, that calls 
upon every citizen to know and to disseminate 
the truth. No man is a patriot if he chooses 
ignorance and inefficiency when he could be 
intelligent and efficient; if he thinks in the 


38 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

terms of a limited and selfish neighborhood 
when he could think in the terms of Democ¬ 
racy. 

There are citizens who minimize the im¬ 
portance of knowledge and of higher educa¬ 
tion, because they fail to understand its 
fundamental place in their own lives and in 
Democracy, and because they happen to know 
some one who had knowledge but did not have 
the power to interpret it into life. They do 
not know the difference between academic 
paralysis and real education and Democracy. 
Daniel Webster said: “Knowledge does not 
comprise all which is contained in the large 
term of education. The feelings are to be 
disciplined; the passions are to be restrained; 
true and worthy motives are to be inspired; 
a profound religious feeling is to be instilled, 
and pure morality inculcated under all cir¬ 
cumstances. All this is comprised in educa¬ 
tion.” Knowledge alone is not sufficient. It 
takes knowledge and goodness to advance 
Democracy. It takes information and wisdom 
to make a democratic program. It takes a 
thought with the experiences of the world in 
it to make an American leader. “We must 
not think,” said Dr. Charles W. Eliot of 
Harvard University, “of the liberal education 


KNOWLEDGE 


39 


of to-day as dealing with a dead past, with 
dead languages, buried peoples, and exploded 
philosophies; on the contrary, everything 
which universities now teach is quick with life 
and capable of application to modern uses. 
They teach indeed the languages and litera¬ 
ture of Judea, Greece, and Rome; but it is 
because those literatures are instinct with 
eternal life. They teach mathematics, but it 
is mathematics mostly created within the life¬ 
time of the older men here present. In teach¬ 
ing English, French, and German, they are 
teaching the modern vehicles of all learning 
just what Latin was in mediaeval times. As 
to history, political science, and natural 
science, the subjects themselves and all the 
methods by which they are taught may prop¬ 
erly be said to be new within a century. 
Liberal education is not to be justly regarded 
as something dry, withered, and effete; it is 
as full of sap as the cedars of Lebanon/’ 

I know a citizen who is always criticizing 
higher education. “He thinks he is intelligent, 
when, in fact, he is ignorant. He fancies him¬ 
self enlightened because he sees the deficien¬ 
cies of others; he is ignorant, because he has 
never reflected on his own.” He lives in a dark 
house but thinks it is light. He uses a grease 


40 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

lamp but thinks it is an arc light. He prefers 
ignorance because he has never experienced 
the joys and illuminations of a higher educa¬ 
tion. He speaks frequently of a few great 
citizens who did not have a college education, 
who achieved great successes in the fields of 
leadership, overlooking the fact that these 
citizens as a rule inherited great talents and 
were highly educated through self-efforts. 
Fisher Ames writes: 44 To be the favorite of an 
ignorant multitude, a man must descend to 
their level; he must desire what they desire 
and detest all they do not approve; he must 
yield to their prejudices and substitute them 
for principles. Instead of enlightening their 
errors he must adopt them and must furnish 
the sophistry that will propagate and define 
them.” 

It is true there can be no absolute rules laid 
down which will insure success, but the history 
of American men and women shows beyond 
doubt the value of higher education. Out of 
22,075 men and women in America listed in 
the 1922-23 Who's Who in America , who have 
rendered valuable service to their country, 77 
out of every 100 attended college, and 64 out 
of every 100 graduated from college. A care¬ 
ful study made by George P. Hambrecht and 


KNOWLEDGE 


41 


J. G. Childs, of Wisconsin University, gives 
the following typical results: One person with¬ 
out an education in 161,290, one with an 
eighth-grade education in 40,841, one with a 
high-school education in 1,606, and one with 
a college education in 173, have a chance of 
achieving distinction. This shows that a 
man with a college education has more than 
900 times the chance of achieving distinction 
than has the man without an education. A 
record of employees kept over a period of ten 
years by one of the electric companies of this 
country shows that 90 men with college educa¬ 
tion out of every 100 succeeded, while 90 out 
of every 100 without college education failed. 

The United States Bureau of Education 
points out that although less than 1 per cent 
of all Americans are college graduates, this 1 
per cent has furnished 55 per cent of the presi¬ 
dents, 36 per cent of the members of Congress, 
47 per cent of the speakers of the House, 54 
per cent of the vice presidents, 62 per cent of 
the secretaries of state, 50 per cent of the 
secretaries of the treasury, 67 per cent of the 
attorneys-general, and 69 per cent of the jus¬ 
tices of the Supreme Court. As the Bureau 
figures it, the college man’s chances for emi¬ 
nence are 370 to 1 against the non-college man. 


42 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

Even more surprising is its showing that 277 
times as many college men had amassed wealth 
as had non-college men. 

Thirty-three of those patriots whose names 
appear on that immortal instrument of free¬ 
dom — the Declaration of Independence — 
were college graduates. Two had had training 
under private tutors, two were college men 
whose records fell short of graduation, fifteen 
had no college training, and of fourteen no 
records are available. Eighteen of the thirty- 
four who signed the American constitution 
were college graduates. 

True education has ever pointed the way 
toward Democracy and toward the emancipa¬ 
tion of men’s souls and minds. 


CHAPTER VII 
“THAT OTHER THING ” 

A man may be a physical giant and still be 
a human pygmy. He may be highly trained, 
one of the intellectuals, and still be a cunning 
scoundrel, a murderer of civilization. It takes 
more than a healthy body, more than formal 
education, more than degrees from higher 
institutions of learning, more than material 
success to make an American. There are men 
who have red corpuscles in their blood, libra¬ 
ries in their brains, and millions of dollars in 
banks who are failures because they do not 
have “that other thing.” 

I do not know what “that other thing” is 
except that it is an intangible spiritual force 
that largely determines every human success, 
establishes commercial credit, stabilizes busi¬ 
ness, and guarantees the perpetuity of free 
government. It is the invisible equipment and 
universal surety of the human being. It is the 
vision, faith, and push in the acorn that pro¬ 
duces the oak. It is the invisible equipment 
which the expert fisherman carries with him 
that enables him to land an eighty-pound fish 

43 


44 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

on a line that would break under a dead weight 
of eighteen pounds. It is integrity, industry, 
initiative, concentration, and all other spiritual 
forces working together in the spirit of unity 
for a square deal for every human being, 
whether he lives on the hill or in the valley, 
in a hut or in a mansion, and whether he pos¬ 
sesses a penny or a million. 

It is “that other thing” which caused Na¬ 
poleon to say: “All of the scholastic scaffold¬ 
ing falls, as a ruined edifice, before one single 
word, faith.” It caused Bulwer to write: 
“Strike from mankind the principles of faith, 
and men would have no more history than 
a flock of sheep.” Plutarch had it in mind 
when he wrote: “A city may as well be built 
in the air as a commonwealth or a kingdom to 
be either constituted or preserved without the 
support of religion.” Carlyle showed its influ¬ 
ence in saying: “It seems to me a great truth 
that human things cannot stand on selfishness, 
mechanical utilities, economics, and law courts; 
that if there be not a religious element in the 
relations of men, such relations are miserable 
and doomed to ruin.” It caused Lowell to 
write: “Our healing is not in the storm or in 
the whirlwind; it is not in monarchies or in 
aristocracies; but it will be revealed by the 


THAT OTHER THING 


45 


still small voice that speaks to the conscience 
and the heart, prompting us to wider and wiser 
humanity.” John Higginton, because of its in¬ 
fluence, said in one of his great addresses: 
“Fathers, brethren, this one thing must not 
be forgotten: that New England originally was 
a plantation of religion, not a plantation of 
trade.” 

“My boy, give good measure.” These are 
the words of a noble father when he spoke to 
his boy who had gathered a load of apples and 
was ready to start to market to sell them. He 
took a half-bushel pail and, filling it to the 
rim, told the boy that was not good measure. 
He put on apples until they were above the rim 
and rolled off, at the same time admonishing 
the boy to give that kind of measure. “That 
other thing” is the thing above the rim. It is 
the plus of the soul. It is the plus in demo¬ 
cratic education and in Democracy. It is the 
plus in the life of every great teacher. It is 
the spirit of good measure and a square deal 
that holds the civic, social, and industrial 
world together and gives every human being a 
chance to live, a chance to grow, and an op¬ 
portunity to enjoy the blessings of life. It 
makes the home, builds and maintains the 
church, supports the schools, establishes li- 


46 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

braries, endows hospitals, feeds the hungry, 
and promotes every effort that advances hu¬ 
manity. 

It gave us America and Columbus, the May¬ 
flower and the Pilgrims, Valley Forge and 
Washington, the Declaration of Independence 
and Jefferson, and the National Constitution 
and our forefathers. It prompted Paul Re¬ 
vere to make his midnight ride; it caused 
Putnam to leave his horse and plow in the 
field and go to the battlefield in defense of 
principles and ideals. It controlled Lincoln 
when he issued the Emancipation Proclama¬ 
tion; Roosevelt when he demanded civic, so¬ 
cial, and industrial righteousness and spiritual 
affirmation; Wilson when he accepted the 
challenge of tyranny and autocracy and gave 
us the League of Nations at the cost of his life. 
It prompted four millions of our men to re¬ 
spond to the call of their country, not because 
they were individuals, but because they were 
Americans; not because they loved money 
and self, but because they lived “ above the 
r im ,” believed in a square deal, and were will¬ 
ing to give their lives for principles and ideals. 

At the meeting of the American Bar As¬ 
sociation in San Francisco in August, 1922, a 
committee on American Citizenship submitted 


“THAT OTHER THING” 47 

a report, the result of painstaking investiga¬ 
tion, wherein the following significant pas¬ 
sages occurred: “There is but one remedy for 
our national ills — education. Knowledge and 
inspiration are essential to citizenship. The 
schools of America must save America.” “But 
we must not be content with merely imparting 
knowledge. American citizenship should mean 
patriotism, and patriotism is not of the intel¬ 
lect alone; it is very largely of the spirit and 
of the heart. It cannot be taught by merely 
imparting information. It cannot be taught 
by a mere discussion of principles. Religion is 
of the spirit; so is patriotism.” “In teaching 
citizenship, the real essential is ‘atmosphere.’ 
An appeal must be made to the heart, to the 
spirit, and to the emotions, as well as to the in¬ 
tellect. America should no more consider 
graduating a student who lacks faith in our 
government than a school of theology should 
consider graduating a minister who lacks 
faith in God.” 

The larger democratic community must be 
accomplished through the larger education, 
and the larger education must be accomplished 
through the larger Democracy. Education 
and Democracy are “members one of an¬ 
other,” inevitably and inextricably bound to- 


48 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

gether. The first duty of Democracy and its 
first necessity are to provide for training which 
will safeguard the health, guarantee the intel¬ 
ligence, and promote the integrity of its citi¬ 
zens. It will take a full-grown Democracy to 
make a full-grown education, and a full-grown 
education to make a full-grown Democracy. 
It will take a full-grown citizen to make a 
full-grown government, and a full-grown 
education to make a full-grown citizen. 

Education to the informed and real Ameri¬ 
can is a conviction, a duty, a responsibility, 
and a program of patriotic deeds. He realizes 
that when education is down, the citizen is 
down; that when the citizen is down, the flag 
is down; and that when the flag is down, every¬ 
thing is down, and hope and freedom are gone. 

We have two classes of illiterates in this 
country. We have the illiterate who cannot 
read and write, and we have what I shall call 
the spiritual illiterate, who has intellectual 
training, who may hold degrees from higher 
institutions of learning, but who does not live 
“above the rim.” I had rather the govern¬ 
ment were under the leadership of dishonest 
illiterates who cannot read and write than 
under the leadership of spiritual illiterates. 
A dishonest illiterate who cannot read and 


THAT OTHER THING 


49 


write is a citizen who is armed with a dan¬ 
gerous gun, who uses defective ammunition, 
and who is a poor marksman. A spiritual 
illiterate is a citizen who is armed with a 
dangerous gun, who uses effective ammuni¬ 
tion, and who is a good marksman. An illiter¬ 
ate who cannot read and write but who has 
“that other thing” is, in the sense I speak, a 
patriot. The spiritual illiterate is a slacker if 
not a genuine traitor. A citizen who has a 
sound body for the soul to work in, a trained 
mind, and “that other thing” is a real Ameri¬ 
can. 

There is more danger in not having enough 
life “above the rim” than in not having 
enough formal education. I do not believe 
that this country is in need of a larger intelli¬ 
gence so much as it is in need of a larger in¬ 
tegrity; it is not in need of a larger ability so 
much as it is in need of a larger dependability. 
What we need is a civic, social, and industrial 
leadership that lives and operates “above the 
rim. ” What we need is a leadership that will 
put the spiritual above the material, the ideal 
above the dollar, clean politics above de¬ 
praved politics, the country above political 
parties, and political parties above barter, 
trade, and commerce. 


50 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

In the number of illiterates in this land; 
in a lack of leadership in civic, social, and 
industrial life; and in crime and a lack of 
respect for constituted authority we see a 
challenge to the churches, the schools, the 
libraries, and all other efforts organized in 
the interest of human advancement. 

There is a challenge in the estimate made by 
fidelity and surety company officials which 
shows that the total annual losses in this coun¬ 
try from financial crimes alone amount to the 
total of three billion dollars, a sum comparable 
to the value of the entire annual imports of 
the nation. The survey made by the com¬ 
mittee on affairs of the American Institute of 
Accountants shows that losses amounting to 
$1,600,000,000 of the above amount are as 
follows: losses from embezzlements and for¬ 
geries, $200,000,000; losses from credit frauds, 
$400,000,000; and losses from stock frauds, 
$1,000,000,000. These losses do not include 
the losses caused by personal violence and 
crime. These stupendous financial losses are 
caused largely by spiritual illiteracy, by the 
failure of trusted citizens and others to live, 
to transact business, and to keep books and 
do other things “above the rim.” It seems to 
me that these and other statistics justify us 


THAT OTHER THING 


51 


in believing that all educational institutions 
should, either through an atmosphere or 
through formal programs, give more emphasis 
to the importance of growing a citizenship 
that will have dependable life. 

We may have preventive measures for de¬ 
tecting frauds, such as automatic internal 
checking systems, professional audits, an earn¬ 
est prosecution of the criminal offender, better 
salaries, division of work, monthly trial bal¬ 
ances, and larger and stronger vaults; but all 
of these measures and all other similar meas¬ 
ures, while necessary, will fail unless the 
trusted citizen has the invisible equipment 
and spiritual surety I have been talking about. 

Too many people are looking for good gov¬ 
ernment to come from without rather than 
from within; from the courthouse rather than 
from an affirmative patriotic people; from 
organized government; and from books of 
statutes rather than from a life that is “ above 
the rim.” Courthouses, organized govern¬ 
ment, and even books of statutes are dead 
influences and institutions unless the life be¬ 
hind them is a living thing. 


CHAPTER VIII 
THE UNIT OF DEMOCRACY 

Man is the fundamental unit of progress. 
Noble life sheds noble life, vision transmutes 
vision, and ideals create ideals. We teach 
and influence the world largely by living 
within, by making our life one of noble deeds. 
Living a life is nature’s laboratory for the 
training of citizens and for the growing of the 
larger Democracy. A great influence is largely 
personal. Great teaching begins in the house 
occupied by our own soul. 

We should stop losing so much time and 
wasting so much money in trying to set in 
order our neighbor’s household before we have 
put our own household in order, and we 
should spend more time at the anvil of our 
individual lives, hammering and forging a life 
that will have human beauty, attractiveness, 
and influence. The saved will save, and life 
will teach without individual conventionality. 
Long ago the world would have experienced 
a new birth, a moral, intellectual, and indus¬ 
trial regeneration, if all of the people who 
have been trying to save the world had been 

52 


THE UNIT OF DEMOCRACY 


53 


saved themselves. “The first great gift we 
can bestow on others is a good example.” 
“One watch set right will do to set many by; 
one that goes wrong may be the means of 
misleading a whole neighborhood; and the 
same may be said of example.” 

There is no objection to our conscious in¬ 
fluence on others, to a deliberate effort to 
reform, unless it takes on the nature of me¬ 
chanical efforts, of posing, for example, or of 
a self-conscious influence. The world never 
respects a mechanical reformer, a moral men¬ 
tor, but it will unconsciously follow in the 
tracks of a great, warm, aggressive personality 
whose life draws but does not drive. “A 
lighthouse sounds no drum, it beats no gong; 
yet far over the waters its friendly light is 
seen by the mariner.” If you would advance 
Democracy, advance yourself. The big thing 
in life and in a Democracy is you. 

“Go make thy garden fair as thou canst. 

Thou workest not alone; 

For he whose plot is next to thine 
Will note and mend his own.” 

Let your influence alone. It will be exactly 
what you are. Let your garden be the mirror 
in which you see yourself. It will not hurt 
you if you go before this mirror each morn- 


54 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

ing and see yourself. If you do not appear 
well and healthy when you look into this 
mirror, you had better look after your spir¬ 
itual and physical health. If you are inter¬ 
ested in the results of your efforts, make the 
tomato you grew in the garden a looking-glass, 
in order that you may see your accomplish¬ 
ments. If you are dissatisfied with the nubbin 
ears of corn you grow in your garden, and you 
are inclined to blame the world for the exist¬ 
ence of nubbins, it would be wise and patriotic 
on your part to make the nubbin a mirror that 
will show your own life. 

At any rate, see to it that the niche in 
human society made by God for you is filled 
by you. It is interesting to notice how many 
of us treat our lives as we sometimes treat a 
gun: load it once or twice a year and then 
point it into space, pull the trigger, and make 
a strange noise but get no game. We some¬ 
times are so superficial that we even fire a 
paper wad from our little human popguns 
with a hope that we may in this way save a 
dear and dying world. 

We will never have the greater community 
until every citizen leaves his neighbor alone 
for a while, goes to work on himself, and gives 
to this country one great life and one noble 


THE UNIT OF DEMOCRACY 55 

endeavor; until a father’s leadership and de¬ 
votion, a mother’s love and service, and 
Christian ideals and parental authority pre¬ 
vail in every home; until the members of 
every church practice the religion they pro¬ 
fess, in and out of the church, and in private 
and public life; until teachers and pupils of 
every school make the school a community 
life where industrial progress and moral and 
intellectual individualities flourish; until all 
the people get away from the rule of selfishness 
and bigotry, from hatred and envy, and in 
the spirit of unity and cooperation work to¬ 
gether for a greater community. 

A man purchased three acres of land located 
on the bank of a beautiful river. It was a 
rough and unsightly spot. The underbrush 
was cleared away, the briar thickets were cut, 
and the sink holes were filled. Trees and 
projecting surface stones were left, and blue- 
grass was planted. It became at once an 
attractive place for a modest home. An in¬ 
expensive little bungalow was built on the 
bluff overlooking the river and was painted 
red. The posts used in fencing the place 
were sharpened at the top and were also 
painted red. One morning when he was down 
on the public highway that passed by the 


56 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

side of his bungalow, he was greeted by a 
man who lived in that section. Now this man 
also had about finished a bungalow, and dur¬ 
ing the conversation he remarked that he was 
going to paint his bungalow red also if there 
were no objections. 

A little later, while he was passing through 
the suburban section of his native city, he 
came across another man who was building a 
fence around his home, and in a conversation 
he said: “There is a fellow down here on the 
bank of the river who sharpened his posts at 
the top and painted them red, and I am going 
to sharpen my posts at the top and paint them 
red.” 

If you want your neighbor to paint his 
bungalow red, paint your bungalow red. If 
you want him to sharpen his posts at the top 
and paint them red, sharpen your posts at 
the top and paint them red. If you want 
him to plant a tree or a vine, plant a tree or 
vine yourself. If you want him to be a model 
farmer, be a model farmer yourself. If you 
would give your community a vision, an ideal, 
a purpose, a life, you must have a vision, an 
ideal, a purpose, and a life. You must live in 
such a way that your influence will, without 
your knowledge, “shake the country for ten 


THE UNIT OF DEMOCRACY 57 

miles around.” The successful leader realizes 
that the expert angler keeps out of sight. 

The external and visible community will 
stand still and not expand until the spiritual 
and invisible community has been realized 
within the human heart. When people, dur¬ 
ing these days of democratic reform, are 
looking for and seeking a better community, 
they are likely to look from without rather 
than from within for community resurrection 
and regeneration. We too frequently fail to 
understand that the democratic community 
cannot be realized until it has worked as a 
leaven, frequently and silently penetrating 
from the motives and ideals of the few into 
the lives of the many. 

An ideal community cannot be made from 
artificial devices and the efforts of outward 
leaven, but it must expand and grow from 
the leaven of individual personality and leader¬ 
ship. One great citizen who lives in the 
spiritual skies, but who, at the same time, 
keeps his feet on earth, uses common sense, 
and does his work nobly, will leaven a whole 
community. The history of every great move¬ 
ment, of every successful neighborhood, of 
every democratic community, state, and na¬ 
tion can be summed up in a few names. 


58 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

All agree that influence and waste, whether 
personal or institutional, are largely inherent 
in personality, and that the greatest thing in 
human endeavor is a properly educated human 
being. It sometimes seems that we are trying 
to win a battle at Valley Forge without a 
Washington; trying to write a Declaration of 
Independence without a Jefferson; trying to 
meet the enemies of freedom without a Foch; 
trying to interpret Democracy without a Wil¬ 
son; trying to have a church without a 
preacher, a school without a teacher, a farm 
without a farmer, a good horseshoe without 
an honest blacksmith; trying to light up 
Democracy without having light in our own 
souls. Our country cannot be illuminated 
with tallow candle and grease lamp person¬ 
alities. It takes the arc-light of a great soul 
to advance religion, education, and Democ¬ 
racy. 


CHAPTER IX 
PATRIOTISM 

Every human achievement in the outward 
world is a mirror that shows us a picture of 
the intelligence, integrity, and industry of 
man. We see the qualities of the angler in 
his catch. We see the qualities of the patriot¬ 
ism of the soldier on the battlefield, of the 
homemaker in the home, of the minister in 
the church, of the teacher in the school, of 
the doctor in his practice, of the poet in the 
poem, of the farmer in the crop, of the black¬ 
smith in the horseshoe. Likewise we see the 
patriotism of all other human beings in their 
achievements, whether they be engaged in 
their chosen work in time of peace or on the 
battlefield in time of war. 

Patriotism is not unhorsed sentimentality, 
but it is a principle, a divine and human 
fundamental. It is not a frenzied spirit that 
has lost its moorings on the sea of life, but it 
is a constructive, intelligent soul that is guided 
by a high sense of justice. It is not a hollow 
voice that speaks without a conscience, but a 
conviction, a depth of life that is prompted 

59 


60 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

by the spirit of love and service. It is not a 
blind and insincere reformer who selfishly 
holds up before the people the ideals of a 
Democracy at a time when he has a flag in 
one hand and a debauched ballot in the other. 
It is not an office seeker who is willing to be 
a victim of a system of depraved politics in 
order that he may get the spoils of an office or 
manage a depraved political machine, but it 
is the character that is strong, decent, and 
fearless, who puts the welfare of the people 
above self. 

The real flag of a Democracy cannot be 
seen with the physical eye. It is a spiritual, 
invisible, vitalized, human personality. We 
are not discounting a sacred approach to the 
material flag, the emblem of liberty that un¬ 
furls its sacred folds before us, or a proper 
appreciation of it, but we are emphasizing 
that the roots of pure and undefiled patriotism 
run deep into the laws of the spirit and into 
personal conduct. The visible American flag 
may be floating before us out in the open 
world and yet be down in the invisible world 
of our own soul. 

The patriotic father who earnestly and pa¬ 
tiently hammers thought and conscience into 
his chosen endeavor and causes the red blood 


PATRIOTISM 


61 


of American life to permeate it through and 
through; the noble mother who loves home, 
works for physical and spiritual sanitation in 
the home, and points all the members of her 
well-ordered and sweet-spirited household to 
Christ and the flag; the son who feels the 
responsibility of citizenship and, with God in 
his heart and with his eye on a high purpose, 
labors for the accomplishment of his purposes; 
the daughter who values woman’s influence 
and opportunities in a Democracy and gives 
her country the more abundant life; and the 
other person, whoever he may be or whatever 
honorable endeavor he may follow, who real¬ 
izes that the strength of a Democracy is in 
the unity, virtue, and justice of her people 
and then gives his country one great life and 
one noble endeavor — these are the soldiers of 
America who defend this land of liberty, 4 ‘the 
land where our fathers died, the land of the 
pilgrims’ pride, and the land of the noble 
free.” These are the real patriots who bear 
“Old Glory” to victory, whether they be in 
the army or in the navy, on the land or on 
the sea, in private or in public life. 

The unit of a Democracy is the human 
being. If the citizen occupies the hilltops of 
his own life, the flag will have a commanding 


62 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

position on the hilltops of American life. 
Make your chosen work, however humble, 
radiant and redolent with high and beautiful 
life, and you will be one of Democracy’s heroes, 
a soldier of high rank who bears the flag at 
the head of the army of progress. It takes 
sterling character to support and perpetuate 
liberty, to make “freedom ring,” to love with 
nature’s devotion our “rocks and rills.” Make 
the people free, and our land will be bright 
with “freedom’s holy light.” 

The flag has been raised to the airs of 
patriotic music in many places and in many 
political conventions where the corruptionist 
muddied the fountains of justice, where the 
grafters befouled the sources of law, where 
the demagogues stabbed civic virtue, and 
where greed and selfishness ruled. Anchoring 
“Old Glory” to every steeple in the land and 
enacting laws requiring that it be placed over 
every schoolhouse will not go far toward the 
development of civic character unless we 
carry it in our hearts, and unless the school 
is a Democracy and supports it in its course 
of study and on the playground and defends 
its honor in its daily conduct. Randall J. 
Condon, superintendent of schools, Cincin¬ 
nati, writes: “My flag —born in the days of 


PATRIOTISM 


revolution — baptized in the days of civil 
strife, re-dedicated to the cause of human 
freedom in the great world conflict; in peace 
and war it has ever floated as the symbol of 
liberty and justice. May its stars never grow 
dim and its stripes never fade. And may the 
children in the schools over which it shall 
float be taught to love justice, to hate evil, 
and to do good, that they may forever protect 
the flag and the ideals for which it stands.” 

The following short address was delivered 
by Franklin Knight Lane, Secretary of the 
Interior in President Wilson’s Cabinet, before 
the employees of the Department of the In¬ 
terior in Washington, D. C., on Flag Day, 1914: 

This morning, as I passed into the Land Office, the 
Flag dropped me a most cordial salutation, and from 
its rippling folds I heard it say: “Good morning, Mr. 
Flag Maker.” 

“I beg your pardon, Old Glory,” I said, “aren’t you 
mistaken? I am not the President of the United States, 
nor a member of Congress, nor even a general in the 
army. I am only a government clerk.” 

“I greet you again, Mr. Flag Maker,” replied the 
gay voice; “I know you well. You are the man who 
worked in the swelter of yesterday straightening out the 
tangle of the farmer’s homestead in Idaho, or perhaps 
you found the mistake in that Indian contract in Okla¬ 
homa, or helped to clear the patent for the hopeful in- 


64 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

ventor in New York, or pushed the opening of that new 
ditch in Colorado, or made that mine in Illinois more 
safe, or brought relief to the old soldier in Wyoming. 
No matter; whichever one of these beneficent indi¬ 
viduals you may happen to be, I give you greeting, Mr. 
Flag Maker.” I was about to pass on, when the Flag 
stopped me with these words: 

“Yesterday the President spoke a word that made 
happier the future of ten million peons in Mexico; but 
that act looms no larger on the flag than the struggle 
which the boy in Georgia is making to win the Corn 
Club prize this summer. 

“Yesterday the Congress spoke a word which will 
open the door of Alaska; but a mother in Michigan 
worked from sunrise until far into the night, to give her 
boy an education. She, too, is making the flag. 

“Yesterday we made a new law to prevent financial 
panics, and yesterday, maybe, a school teacher in Ohio 
taught his first letters to a boy who will one day write 
a song that will give cheer to the millions of our race. 
We are all making the flag.” 

“But,” I said impatiently, “these people were only 
working!” 

Then came a great shout from the Flag: 

“The work that we do is the making of the flag. 

“Iam not the flag; not at all. I am but its shadow. 

“I am whatever you make me, nothing more. 

“Iam your belief in yourself, your dream of what a 
people may become. 

“I live a changing life, a life of moods and passions, 
of heartbreaks and tired muscles. 

“Sometimes I am strong with pride, when men do 
an honest work, fitting the rails together truly. 


PATRIOTISM 


65 


“Sometimes I am loud, garish, and full of that ego 
that blasts judgment. 

“But, always, I am all that you hope to be and have 
the courage to try for. 

“I am song and fear, struggle and panic, and en¬ 
nobling hope. 

“I am the days work of the weakest man, and the 
largest dream of the most daring. 

“I am the Constitution and the courts, statutes and 
the statute-makers, soldier and dreadnaught, dray¬ 
man and street sweep, cook, counselor, and clerk. 

“I am the battle of yesterday, and the mistake of 
tomorrow. 

“I am the mystery of the men who do without know¬ 
ing why. 

“I am the clutch of an idea, and the reasoned pur¬ 
pose of resolution. 

“I am no more than what you believe me to be, and 
I am all that you believe I can be. 

“I am what you make me, nothing more. 

“I swing before your eyes as a bright gleam of color, 
a symbol of yourself, the pictured suggestion of that 
big thing which makes this nation. My stars and my 
stripes are your dream and your labors. They are 
bright with cheer, brilliant with courage, firm with 
faith, because you have made them so out of your hearts. 
For you are the makers of the flag, and it is well that 
you glory in the making.” 

Invisible Democracy, the protector of every 
home and the champion of social and indus¬ 
trial freedom, has won great victories for 


66 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

human rights. We will not be loyal to our 
flag; we will not be true to the memory of 
our noble men who gave their lives for the 
ideals of freedom; we will not honor the high 
purpose of the four million Americans who 
responded to the call of our country; we will 
not sanctify the glorious efforts of our nation 
to defend human rights, if we fail to vindicate 
in thought, in church, in school, in conduct, in 
private, and in public life the ideals for which 
we have fought and sacrificed. 


CHAPTER X 

OCCUPATION AND ENDEAVORS 

Honorable occupation in a Democracy will 
rise as high as the citizen in it. A small citi¬ 
zen in a so-called high occupation makes a 
small occupation, and a strong and construc¬ 
tive citizen in a so-called small occupation 
makes a large occupation. Even the size of a 
farm does not depend upon the number of 
acres in it so much as it does upon the size 
of the farmer. The farmer who has fifty 
acres of land may have a larger farm when 
measured in the size and quality of the crop, 
and a higher life when the test is made in 
the soul, than the farmer who has five hun¬ 
dred acres of land. The size of the farm and 
the crop depends upon the size of the farmer. 
When reduced to its last analysis, the farm is 
the farmer. What is true with farming is true 
with other occupations. 

Aristocracy in a Democracy is character and 
service. On an intellectual and spiritual basis. 
Democracy reduces all honorable human en¬ 
deavors to an equality and makes a black¬ 
smith who puts democratic ideas and service 

67 


68 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

into his horseshoe and into his workmanship 
a greater citizen than a governor of a common¬ 
wealth whose acts are prompted by low and 
base motives. J. G. Holland, the eminent 
author, wrote: 44 No work that God sets a man 
to do — no work to which God has especially 
adapted a man’s power — can properly be 
called either menial or mean. The man who 
blacks your boots and blacks them well, and 
who engages in that variety of labor because he 
can do it better than he can do anything else, 
may have, if he chooses, just as sound and 
true manhood as you have, not only after he 
gets through the work of his life, but now, with 
your boots in one hand and your shilling in the 
other.” 

No normal citizen can have pleasure in pur¬ 
suing an occupation which he regards as 
mechanical, as a dead thing, and as of little 
importance to the world. Every citizen must 
feel that he is engaged in a noble work, or else 
he is not likely to render an efficient service 
and be interested in his occupation. In order 
to develop a democratic citizenship that is 
strong in interest and purpose, it is necessary 
to get the citizen to understand that the prod¬ 
uct of his thought and labor reflects his vision 
and the character and the nature of his work 


OCCUPATION AND ENDEAVORS 


69 


and citizenship. The thrill and the interest 
of life depend not only upon interpreting into 
deeds the opportunities offered by our occupa¬ 
tion but upon seeing ourselves and our service 
to society in the product of our labor. 

The citizen who makes a plow will have a 
growing interest in his efforts when he under¬ 
stands the importance and the mission of a 
plow in the work of developing society; and 
a teacher who stimulates through his influence 
and teaching the growth of a better citizen 
will glory in his achievements when he under¬ 
stands the organic need of a good citizen in a 
Democracy. 

The farmer sells his farm and buys a livery 
stable, a store, or a boarding-house; the boy 
leaves the farm and takes a clerkship in the 
city; the daughter gives up her country home 
and seeks employment in the nearest village; 
the teacher gives up teaching for law; the 
merchant sells his stock of goods and engages 
in the insurance business; the others are rest¬ 
less and discontented and are changing their 
occupations, largely because they are uncon¬ 
sciously fishing in a minnow hole, and, un¬ 
fortunately for them and for Democracy, most 
of them do not know they are. 

The dignity of labor, the earning capacity 


70 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

of the people, and their contentment with their 
chosen work depends largely upon intelligent 
effort and a spiritualization of their endeavors. 
The fisherman will not throw down his rod 
and leave the sea while he has a big fish on the 
end of his line. The boy will not leave the 
farm, and the citizen will not leave his chosen 
work when their occupations become to them 
a sea alive with fish, and when they feel the 
thrills that come from the better health and 
the larger intelligence and integrity. “The 
fountain of contentment,” wrote Johnson, 
“must spring up in the mind; and he who has 
so little knowledge of human nature as to seek 
happiness by changing anything but his own 
disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts 
and multiply the griefs which he proposes to 
remove.” 

It is natural for a citizen to grow restless 
and discontented and to seek other employ¬ 
ment, if he regards farming or some other occu¬ 
pation as a dead and uninteresting thing, if 
he fails to interpret and use its opportunities, 
or if he never has an interest or an education 
that stopped at a superficial preparation, an 
impoverished agriculture, or a nubbin ear of 
corn. It is hard for a fisherman to have con¬ 
tentment and faith when he realizes that he 


OCCUPATION AND ENDEAVORS 71 

has a big fish on a rotten line. When we suc¬ 
ceed in vitalizing the endeavors of life through 
a system of education founded upon the social 
and economic needs of all the people, we will 
succeed in a large measure in developing a 
larger efficiency, contentment, and happiness 
among the people and in influencing them to 
dedicate their lives to their chosen work. 

A citizen of humble surroundings and of 
splendid native ability came to my home early 
one beautiful morning to sell some products 
he had grown upon his small but fertile farm, 
which I am told was mortgaged. His un¬ 
kempt team, his rickety old wagon, and the 
impoverished agricultural products he had 
grown were photographs of the vision, in¬ 
telligence, and efforts of the man. Everything 
indicated that he did not read, think, or plan. 
Life evidently to him was a dead routine. As 
soon as I saw his products in his wagon, I knew 
he was fishing in a minnow hole. I had just 
finished reading an interesting article in an 
agricultural journal upon corn culture. In a 
conversation with him I asked if he had read 
the article. He replied: “I do not take any 
agricultural journals or any other paper and 
do not read because I do not have time to 
read.” I went back to my study and wrote 


72 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

the following: “Every citizen in a Democracy 
who does not read because he does not have 
time to read must be shown that the reason 
he does not have time to read is because he 
does not read.” 

The citizen was depending entirely upon his 
muscles and physical endurance for a physical 
living. His whole purpose was to make a 
living and not a life, and, as a result, he was 
not succeeding in doing either. His hands 
toiled while his mind slept. He had physi¬ 
cal strength and endurance but was without 
vision, ideals, and education. It had not oc¬ 
curred to him that the small, knotty potatoes 
in his wagon were good photographs of his 
ideals. He had not realized that every great 
crop that grows upon the material fields is 
first grown upon the fields of the soul. It was 
difficult for him to believe that reading, think¬ 
ing, and planning had anything to do with 
agriculture. It was hard for him to under¬ 
stand how thought had anything to do with 
the nubbin ears of corn that were growing on 
his farm. 

When I told him that, all things being equal, 
the citizen that grows big ears of corn has 
more religion and is a better American than 
the citizen who grows nubbins, and that by 


OCCUPATION AND ENDEAVORS 73 

“all things being equal” I meant an equal 
chance in talents, opportunities, soil, climate, 
and all other things, including the motives 
that enter into democratic efforts, he told me 
that I was a Godless man, and that he would 
not give his religion for all of the corn in 
America. Want and poverty were stepping 
upon his heels and kept him so busy making 
something to eat and to wear for himself 
and family that he really believed that he did 
not have time to read and think. The length 
of time between his meals instead of free¬ 
ing him enslaved him. To him the length of 
a day extended from the awakening from sleep 
in the morning to the return to sleep at night. 
It was measured on the dial of the clock. Ig¬ 
norance never has time to read. It is almost 
always hungry and in a hurry. No day is 
long enough for it to make a living or to live 
a life. Confucius said: “Ignorance is the 
night of the mind, but a night without moon 
or stars.” 

Democracy realizes that accurate thinking 
and moral conduct are fundamental necessi¬ 
ties to human progress. The average citizen 
does not need another dollar in his pocket so 
much as he needs correct business and Chris¬ 
tian ideals in his soul. He does not need a doc- 


74 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

tor so much as he needs ideals of health and 
sanitation. He does not need pills and medi¬ 
cine so much as he needs soap and water and 
health ideals. Even the pauper, as a rule, 
does not need a loaf of bread so much as he 
needs the capacity to make a loaf of bread and 
to know the law of the loaves and fishes. The 
farmer does not need to have the mortgage on 
his place paid off so much as he needs the 
capacity and the opportunity to pay off the 
mortgage himself. 

There are many people who work too hard 
with their hands rather than not hard enough. 
Many, like horses that work at the sorghum 
mill, make physical circles around their oc¬ 
cupations. Occupation to them is a dead 
thing, and life is a routine, a drudgery, a 
physical circle, a minnow hole instead of a 
big ocean. Endless grind and physical circles 
in occupations have made for many people 
premature graves and have sent thousands to 
the asylums and penitentiaries. We can never 
achieve the larger Democracy until occupa¬ 
tion is spiritualized, until it is vitalized with 
health, thought, and conscience, and with the 
thrills that come from launching out into the 
deep and feeling the swells of the larger life. 
It is easier for a people who dabble in the shoals 


OCCUPATION AND ENDEAVORS 75 

to lose their health, their mental poise, their 
integrity, and their interest in their occupa¬ 
tions than it is for a people who have the larger 
experiences. 


CHAPTER XI 

DEMOCRACY’S GROWTH 

Democratic states are not made according 
to blueprints. It would be interesting to 
watch a horticulturist in an effort to force 
the growth of an apple tree and of apples ac¬ 
cording to blueprints and specifications. We 
cannot force healthy branches to appear at 
certain points on the tree, or specific kinds of 
apples of various colors and sizes on certain 
twigs. When it comes to growth, nature has 
its own way, and it is the best way. We can 
aid growth by beginning with a healthy tree, 
by fertilizing and cultivating the soil, by 
letting in sunlight, air, and rain, by destroying 
parasites, by treating diseases that weaken 
and destroy vitality, and by doing other 
things; but we cannot control growth or 
change the nature of the tree. We may, 
through a grafting process, change form and 
increase variety, but we cannot force the 
growth of an apple. It would be as easy to 
take some wood and tools and paint and make 
a real apple as it would be to make an ideal 
or a Democracy. Both must be grown. 

76 


DEMOCRACY’S GROWTH 77 

In this age, when reform seems to have be¬ 
come a profession, when the whole world 
seems to be trying to save somebody else, 
when people are too frequently looking to 
laws and to bureaus and commissions of re¬ 
form for improved government, it would be 
well for us to keep in mind that the thing we 
must do is to interpret life and to translate it 
into programs of democratic action rather 
than to follow blueprints and dead specifica¬ 
tions prepared by superficial minds in the in¬ 
terest of a speedy millennium. “The biggest 
problem,” says Henry Suzzallo, president of 
the University of Washington, “that America 
has to solve is that of equalizing the opportu¬ 
nities of life through giving every child a 
chance to grow in power as he ought while 
personal powers are still flexible. Our cur¬ 
rent wild faith in legislation as a cure-all for 
human failures, both individual and collective, 
is pathetic to the man who knows that America 
is a Democracy of souls, a cooperation of 
free citizens who must be trained to develop 
and give their best. To attend thoughtfully 
to education is to attack the American prob¬ 
lem at the roots instead of at the branches and 
leaves. I hold no brief for the perfection of 
education as it has been or is; merely for the 


78 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

right use of educational means adjusted to our 
national purpose. Without the educational 
system that we have had, imperfect as it has 
been, we should long ago have been saddened 
with the social and political chaos it has pre¬ 
vented.” The only thing we can do is to 
plant the tree of civilization by the rivers of 
the more abundant education and then to 
cultivate the soil and assist its growth. 

A democratic government cannot overtake 
itself. It is always beyond. “We are never 
present with but always beyond ourselves. 
Fear, desire, and hope are still pushing us on 
toward the future.” A perfect government, 
however, will never exist between earth and 
heaven. It might exist if a growing soul 
could overtake its ideal, but this has never 
happened. If it should happen, growth would 
cease and death would begin. “The higher 
duty of government,” says Dr. David Starr 
Jordan, “is to keep the road unobstructed so 
that each man can make his own way for 
himself.” 

Premature growth produces premature 
fruit. Governmental laws, commissions, and 
bureaus with unnatural and artificial missions, 
enacted and established in the interest of 
quick reform, produce poor government rather 


DEMOCRACY’S GROWTH 


79 


than good government. The real statesman 
is more interested in the kind of fruit Democ¬ 
racy will produce in the future than he is in 
the kind of fruit it produces tomorrow. 

John Milton, the great thinker and poet, 
in speaking of the personal freedom of man, 
said: “Real and substantial freedom proceeds 
from within and not from without and de¬ 
pends not upon the terror of the sword but on 
sobriety of conduct and integrity of life. Such 
liberty is the fruit of justice, of temperance, 
and of unadulterated virtue and cannot be 
taken away by treachery or intimidation. Un¬ 
less the horizon of the mind is cleared of the 
mist of superstition which arises from igno¬ 
rance, you will always have those who will 
bend your necks to the yoke as if you were 
brutes; who will put you up to the highest 
bidder as if you were booty made in war, and 
will find an exuberant source of wealth in your 
ignorance and superstition. You, therefore, 
who wish to be free, cease to be fools, and learn 
to be wise.” 

The freedom of the soul is the foundation 
upon which our government is built. Being 
founded upon freedom, it must, in the very 
nature of things, restrain and limit those 
things that grow out of the abuses of free- 


80 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

dom. Gentz wrote: “Two principles gov¬ 
ern the moral and intellectual world. One 
is perpetual progress; the other the neces¬ 
sary limitations to that progress. If the 
former alone prevailed, there would be noth¬ 
ing steadfast and durable on earth, and 
the whole of social life would be the sport of 
winds and waves. If the latter had exclusive 
sway, or even if it obtained a mischievous 
preponderancy, everything would petrify or 
rot. The best ages of the world are those in 
which these two principles are the most 
equally balanced. In such ages every en¬ 
lightened man ought to adopt both principles 
and with one hand develop what he can, with 
the other restrain and uphold what he ought.” 

We must not forget that any government 
which takes over the responsibility that in¬ 
herently belongs to the people and does the 
things for the people which they should do for 
themselves, making them “nothing when they 
should be everything,” destroys Democracy’s 
civic training school and cuts off the currents 
of initiative. Plato wrote: “The less fitted a 
people to govern themselves, the greater their 
need of self-government.” 

We cannot force the larger democratic 
community through a quill, a dogma, a super- 


DEMOCRACY’S GROWTH 


81 


ficial enthusiasm, a human machine, a re¬ 
former’s device, or even through a community 
program, a state legislature, or a National 
Congress. We cannot dream the larger demo¬ 
cratic community into existence. It must be 
achieved through the influence of the home, 
the church, the school, the library, better 
agriculture, good roads, clean politics, a larger 
civic vision and patriotism, and every other 
outward and inward democratic influence and 
agency of life that approaches the individual, 
awakens the soul, stimulates self-discovery, 
and prompts human efficiency. 

The democratic community expands and 
grows from within and not from without; 
its leaves are spiritual thought and service. 
It may be stimulated by outside influences, 
from the front porches of men who do not live 
in the community, but, in the end, the com¬ 
munity must grow from within; it must have 
its own leaven, its own self-control, its own 
self-reliance, and its own community atmos¬ 
phere, character, capacity, leadership, and 
responsibility. The boat, the oars, the fishing 
tackle, the bait, the lure, and the oarsmen 
are in the soul. Dr. E. M. Burritt, of Cornell 
University says: “There exists in every com¬ 
munity the forces and the ability to solve that 


82 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

community’s problems. They may be and 
frequently are undeveloped, but they are 
none the less there. These forces may be 
sought out, stimulated, trained, and developed 
and then applied to problems of the com¬ 
munity.” 


CHAPTER XII 
INDIVIDUALITY AND IDEAS 

Man inherits initiative. He is by nature a 
pioneer. He is a fisherman in new waters. He 
is himself the one great method for the devel¬ 
opment of social and industrial efficiency. 
“Each mind,” wrote Emerson, “hath its own 
method. A true man never acquires after 
college rules. What you have yourself ag¬ 
gregated in a natural manner surprises and 
delights when it is produced. We cannot 
oversee each other’s secret.” The integrity of 
individuality and sincere, original, independ¬ 
ent ideas must be preserved in the lives of 
the people, or we shall experience a gloomy 
failure in the work of developing and per¬ 
petuating Democracy. “The greatest thing 
in the world,” said Montaigne, “is for a man 
to know that he is his own.” 

The hope of our country is in a people who 
read, think, and serve; who preserve the right 
to take the initiative for themselves; and who 
challenge the right of any man or organization 
to do their thinking and voting for them. 
When God opened space and threw millions 


84 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

of worlds into it, He made no two alike. When 
He swung into existence a young Democracy, 
He made no two of its human beings the same. 
In fact, He made us different and gave us 
different missions to perform in order that we 
might have a great country. He did more than 
this: He made it impossible for the niche in¬ 
tended for one human being to be filled by 
another. “Every human being,” wrote Chan- 
ning, “has a work to carry on within, duties 
to perform abroad, influences to exert which 
are peculiarly his and which no conscience but 
his own can teach.” It has been ordained by 
nature that there shall be a multiplicity of 
individualities and ideas in order to secure the 
highest development of justice and progress 
in society. 

Men of strong individuality always have a 
strong personal influence, while men of weak 
individuality never exercise a commanding in¬ 
fluence on others. The citizen who stereotypes 
his life, who refuses to have an open mind, and 
who is ruled by prejudice, is a dangerous in¬ 
fluence in a free country. Society, if it would 
succeed in its efforts to grow a worthy citizen¬ 
ship and a good government, must avoid all 
kinds of influences and stereotyped systems 
that minimize initiative and serious and in- 


INDIVIDUALITY AND IDEAS 85 

dependent thought. Emerson, the eminent 
philosopher whose writings have done so much 
for the edification of man, gave us the follow¬ 
ing lines: “Let us affront and reprimand the 
smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment 
of the times and hurl in the face of custom 
and trade and office the fact which is the up¬ 
shot of all history: that there is a great re¬ 
sponsible Thinker and Actor moving wherever 
moves a man; that a true man belongs to no 
other time or place, but is the center of things. 
Where he is, there is nature. He measures you 
and all men and all events. You are con¬ 
strained to accept his standard. Ordinarily 
everybody in society reminds us of something 
else or of some other person. Character, 
reality, reminds you of nothing else. It takes 
place on the whole creation. The man must 
be so much that he must make all circum¬ 
stances indifferent, put all means into the 
shade. This all great men are and do.” 

Our efforts must be vitalized by ideas from 
nature’s laboratory before we can become 
effective anglers in a Democracy. We can 
make bullets in a mold, but we cannot make 
ideas in that way. I know a family of nine 
boys all of whom belong to the same church 
and the same political party as their parents. 


86 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


It is doubtful whether the boys really had 
much to do with their choice. Most of us are 
members of the different churches, of different 
political parties, and of other organizations, 
and most of us believe in certain sects and 
principles for the same reason that a bullet is 
a bullet. We are treated in the same way that 
I treated a bar of lead when I was a boy. After 
putting the lead into a spoon, I put the spoon 
on hot coals, melted the lead, poured it into 
bullet molds, and made bullets. In the midst 
of varied reforms there is some danger of try¬ 
ing to make citizens as I made bullets. Ameri¬ 
cans are grown in the spiritual nurseries of 
Democracy, not made like material articles 
in a commercial manufactory. 

There is no music so sweet in a Democracy 
as the singing of a spinning idea as it passes 
through the universe; no chorus like the rattle 
of spiritual artillery; no solo that equals the 
boom of a moral Gatling gun; no fleet so 
strong and stately as a fleet of white ideas 
sailing the sea of life. In one of his great 
addresses Beecher said: “Ideas are cosmo¬ 
politan. They have the liberty of the world. 
You have no right to take the sword and cross 
the bounds of other nations and enforce on 
them laws or institutions they are unwilling 


INDIVIDUALITY AND IDEAS 


87 


to receive. But there is no limit to the sphere 
of ideas. Your thoughts and feelings — the 
whole world lies open to them, and you have 
the right to send them into any latitude, and 
to give them sweep around the earth, to the 
mind of every human being.” 

Battles between individualities and duels 
between ideals are the natural products of 
affirmative man and of democratic govern¬ 
ments. There is but one thing that can van¬ 
quish an idea, and that is a superior idea. 
There is but one thing that can put the pond 
out of business, and that is the sea. There is 
but one thing that can vanquish the Southern 
King, and that is the Tarpon. There is but 
one thing that is better than America, and 
that is a superior America. 

The citizen who creates a superior idea to 
become a relentless foe to a prevailing and 
accepted inferior idea is a patriot who plants 
the flag on the hills of liberty. An unsound 
idea may become in our government a more 
formidable foe than an invading army. A 
great idea in time of peace may be worth far 
more to the country than a bullet in time of 
war. Democracy invites patriotic discussions, 
a contest between ideas. The citizen who pre¬ 
serves his health and his individuality, who 


88 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

hears and obeys the voice of an educated 
conscience, and grows and goes behind a con¬ 
scientious life is a patriot who fights the battles 
of the flag and marches at the head of the 
army of progress, whether he is a Methodist 
or a Baptist, a member of the Democratic or 
Republican party or of any other organiza¬ 
tion. 

The schools of a Democracy should be 
human nurseries where ideas grow and indi¬ 
vidualities flourish; schools that look with 
disfavor upon any tendency to be stereo¬ 
typed by officials at the cost of originality or 
upon a tendency to dissipate the power of 
initiative and the sense of responsibility in 
the life of the child; schools that will develop 
a reading, thinking, working, serving people 
who preserve their individuality and who 
think and act for themselves and challenge the 
right of any man to intrude upon their in¬ 
alienable rights to take the initiative in en¬ 
deavors. 


CHAPTER XIII 
PUBLIC OPINION AND LAWS 

No Democracy can last without unseen 
government, without the invisible winds, 
and without the silent rule of human lives. 
The democratic principles and ideals that 
rule in the citadel of the soul cannot be fully 
expressed in written laws and political plat¬ 
forms; neither can they be effectively trans¬ 
mitted to the lives of the people through laws 
made by partisan legislatures. Yet they are 
the invisible influences that largely make and 
govern every free country. There is no greater 
work that can be done than the crystallizing 
of human ideals and noble desires that are 
frequently silent and passive into a positive 
public sentiment that will force higher stand¬ 
ards in private and public conduct and in all 
of the departments of human endeavor. 
“Private opinion,” said Beecher, “is weak, 
but public opinion is almost omnipotent. A 
single snowflake — who cares for that? But a 
whole day of snowflakes, drifting over every¬ 
thing, obliterating landmarks, and gathering 

89 


90 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

on the mountains to crash in avalanches — 
who does not care for that? ” 

The larger Democracy must be accom¬ 
plished by recognizing the unwritten law of 
public opinion as the most powerful social and 
economic force in a Democracy. Growing 
citizens for service in a Democracy is best 
accomplished through a militant public sen¬ 
timent that enforces the right and challenges 
the wrong, and through a system of democratic 
education that will influence the people and 
make them responsible for the ideals of the 
country. 

We need a public sentiment that will have 
enough democratic life in it to consume any 
man who would debauch the ideals of a free 
people; a public sentiment that will be a 
spiritual “atmosphere” to the citizen who 
loves and defends home and country and a 
flame of fire to the selfish citizen who would 
put his own interest above the interest of his 
people; a public sentiment that will unify the 
people and eliminate any partisan and class 
feeling that separates them from making 
their interest a common interest; a public 
sentiment that will proclaim to the world that 
America is a land of optimism, of opportunity, 
of law and order, unfit for dead men and law- 


PUBLIC OPINION AND LAWS 91 

breakers, and suitable only for live and 
righteous men. 

Senator Hoar, in speaking of political cor¬ 
ruption, said: “The citizen who would cor¬ 
rupt a great state to get an office must be 
made to feel that his success will brTng with 
it neither joy nor honor. Let public scorn 
blast him; let him be avoided as one with a 
leprosy. We shall not, probably, revive the 
ignominious punishments of the past, but if 
they are ever revived, let him be their first 
victim. The whipping post, the branding on 
the forehead, the cropping of the ears, the 
scourging at the cart’s tail, are like punish¬ 
ments for the rich man who would debauch a 
state with an honorable history, or a young 
and pure state in the beginning of its history. 
If we cannot apply them literally and physi¬ 
cally, let the aroused public sentiment of his 
countrymen pillory and brand and scourge 
the infamous offender. Leave him to his 
infamy. Let him be an outcast from the 
companionship of free men. Give him a cloak 
to hide him in and leave him alone with his 
shame and sin.” 

Democratic governments are not, as a rule, 
in need of more laws so much as they are in 
need of more men who respect and obey the 


92 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

law, men who are straight, decent, and fearless; 
men who study public issues and have inde¬ 
pendent opinions, promote public discussions, 
and take an active interest in their govern¬ 
ment; men who do right without having a 
law flashed in their faces. The country is 
full of undesirable citizens who seem to think 
they are Americans, but who are frequently 
in word and conduct lawbreakers that 
trample law under their feet until they reach 
the door of the criminaks cell and then me¬ 
chanically obey the law in order to stay out 
of the penitentiary. Not more laws, but more 
respect for authorized law, and more positive 
and efficient support in the enforcement of 
laws already made, is our greatest need. This 
must be accomplished largely through educa¬ 
tion. 

Henry Suzzallo, president of the University 
of Washington, writes: “How else than 
through education can millions of men be 
given a common understanding, aspiration, 
and will, which together make the life of the 
republic a true, free, and effective coopera¬ 
tion. Our Constitution and our statutes, 
however they have been wrought out of the 
vital experiences and the travailed thinking 
of previous generations, are merely laws 


PUBLIC OPINION AND LAWS 93 

written on paper. They are not vital and 
enforceable until they are written into the 
souls of men and women, becoming an habit¬ 
ual as well as a thoughtful and feeling 
expression of the vast majority of citizens. 
In the formal political sense, our laws have to 
be enacted only once; but in the deepest 
psychological sense, they have to be reenacted 
every generation. Indeed, one might almost 
say that each law has to be reenacted for 
each individual, in the sense that it must be 
woven into his respect, reverence, understand¬ 
ing, and will* This is clearly a process of edu¬ 
cation. Government by popular sovereignty 
is a simple and glorious aspiration but a com¬ 
plicated and laborious task involving much 
preparation of mind and character. Successful 
schooling is worth all it costs and may be 
worth much more than we are willing to pay, 
just because it is the safest and surest way of 
achieving the kind of lawful and orderly co¬ 
operations which are essential to the progress 
and happiness of free men and women. The 
American kind of government scarcely seems 
workable or preservable without widespread 
education.” 

Obeying the law is only a part of the duty 
of the citizen. He must use every influence 


94 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

he has to see that the law is enforced. Be¬ 
lieving it to be an unjust law does not excuse 
him. General Grant never said a wiser thing 
than when he declared: “The best way to 
treat a bad law is to enforce it strictly, and 
then its odious features would soon arrest 
attention and a considerate judgment of the 
majority repeal it.” Lincoln, in speaking of 
reverence for the law, gave us the following 
words of wisdom: “Let reverence of the law 
be breathed by every mother to the lisping 
babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be 
taught in schools, seminaries, and colleges; let 
it be written in primers, spelling books, and 
almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpits 
and proclaimed in legislative halls and en¬ 
forced in courts of justice; in short, let it 
become the political religion of the nation.” 

The noblest law known in the experience of 
man will die in the hands of a people who will 
not execute it. It will be a civic tragedy that 
will destroy respect for law and lower the 
standards of the people. Democracy never 
intended that there should be such a thing as 
a homeless law. But there will be homeless 
laws unless they are founded upon the funda¬ 
mentals of the National Constitution and upon 
the inalienable rights of the people, and unless 


PUBLIC OPINION AND LAWS 


95 


they are of form and character that will 
prompt the soul to open the door to its house 
and invite them in. There are thousands of 
laws on the books of statutes that were not 
made in the image of justice and for this rea¬ 
son are silently refused admittance to the home 
of the soul. A law not made in the image of 
justice and founded upon the principles of the 
Constitution is a nursery of anarchy. Just 
laws supported by a militant public senti¬ 
ment will save the people from much dis¬ 
tress and suffering, reduce the enormous 
expense of criminal prosecutions to a mini¬ 
mum, create a respect for the dignity of 
the law, and make the people safer and hap¬ 
pier in their homes. The most powerful force 
in a Democracy is the unwritten law of public 
opinion. 


CHAPTER XIV 
POLITICAL PARTIES 

Political parties are the natural products of 
government by public opinion. Garfield said: 
“Real political issues cannot be manufac¬ 
tured by the leaders of parties and cannot be 
evaded by them. They declare themselves 
and come out of the depths of that deep which 
we call public opinion/’ Political parties are 
necessary to our form of government and 
should be the cleanest and most patriotic or¬ 
ganizations in our land. Without political 
organizations through which to express the 
public will and choice, it would be almost im¬ 
possible in a Democracy to promote effectively 
public issues that concern the welfare of the 
country, to register the conclusions of the 
people, and to place responsibility for the ad¬ 
ministration of government. Mr. James Bryce, 
in speaking of party organizations, said: “But 
the spirit and force of party have in America 
been as essential to the action of the machinery 
of government as steam is to the locomotive 
engine; or, to vary the simile, party associa- 

96 


POLITICAL PARTIES 


97 


tion and organization are to the organs of 
government almost what the motor nerves are 
to the muscles, sinews, and bones of the human 
body — they transmit the motive power and 
determine the direction in which the organs 
act.” 

Two or more political parties in a democratic 
nation are necessities in the work of growing 
and maintaining good government. The two 
great contending political parties in this coun¬ 
try serve as checks on each other and guaran¬ 
tee a higher order of civic life than we would 
have with only one party. A political party 
which sincerely and wisely champions prin¬ 
ciples and ideals that are superior to the prin¬ 
ciples and ideals championed by a contesting 
party is entitled to the support of the people, 
whether it is the Democratic, Republican, or 
some other party. 

No political party, however, is entitled to 
the suffrage of a free people unless it has a 
vision of human needs and a purpose to inter¬ 
pret its vision into life, and unless it has a 
program of action vitalized through and 
through with the spirit of service and of con¬ 
structive leadership. No party deserves sup¬ 
port unless it is conceived in the soul of jus¬ 
tice and fashioned and formed into a militant 


98 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

patriotic life, in order that the people might 
have life and have it more abundantly. 

This makes the mission of the party as high 
as human life itself; not higher than the ideals 
of Democracy, but higher than machine poli¬ 
tics, and higher than the political jockey alley, 
where the sacred offices of the people too fre¬ 
quently have been bartered as you would a 
bunch of bleating sheep. Lincoln wrote: 
“If ever this free people, if this government 
itself is ever utterly demoralized, it will come 
from the incessant human wriggle and struggle 
for office.” The larger Democracy is calling 
upon us to drive invisible political Kaiserism 
from this land of ours and to do for the auto¬ 
cratic manipulator of the job-clearing house 
what Democracy has done for the military 
groups that have ruled most of the world in 
the past. 

When managed in the interest of the public 
welfare, party organizations will, without polit¬ 
ical mechanics, without invisible party poli¬ 
tics, without depraved political machines, 
without large campaign funds, pour the red 
blood of democratic government and progress 
into the arteries of the country through effi¬ 
cient leadership and through party loyalty. 

Influence in party organization is largely 


POLITICAL PARTIES 


99 


inherent in personality. The greatest asset in 
party organization is a great citizen in a public 
office—a Washington, a Jefferson, a Roosevelt, 
a Lincoln, or a Wilson in the President’s chair. 
The currents of the higher civic life will flow 
through the arteries of the nation when the 
currents of an inspired and high civic life flow 
through the personality of party leadership. 
The people of America have visions of a larger 
life because many of her great leaders had 
visions of new fields of service, and in the spirit 
of love and self-sacrifice toiled unceasingly 
and most effectively for the accomplishment 
of the American vision and for the rule of jus¬ 
tice. Their constructive brains, Christian 
hearts, and patriotic leadership are Democ¬ 
racy’s greatest asset. Only citizens of intelli¬ 
gence and integrity who love justice and right, 
and who have a deep concern about the con¬ 
dition of every human being, are capable of 
leadership in a great political party. No party 
can render real service unless it is free from 
secret and selfish control and malarial in¬ 
fluences of all kinds. Party leadership is more 
important than party platforms. 

Budget T. Hayes, in his American Democ¬ 
racy , says: “Political parties have had a great 
influence on the development of the govern- 



100 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


ment of the people. They have both helped 
and hindered. While they have been a power¬ 
ful means of educating the people in the 
practice of carrying on government, they have 
also sometimes retarded progress. Thousands 
of voters have been party men, pure and 
simple; they were born Democrats or Repub¬ 
licans, and they died Democrats or Republi¬ 
cans, bequeathing their political faith to their 
sons. Measures proposed by one party, no 
matter how commendable, are generally op¬ 
posed and frequently defeated by the other 
party, with seeming disregard for the welfare 
of the country as a whole. The candidates 
for office set up by either party have been 
savagely reviled by the members of the other, 
and vital issues are often clouded by preju¬ 
dice and party feeling. 

“On the whole, however, political parties 
have done much toward the development of 
political Democracy. In the heat and conflict 
of debate new and better ideas spring into 
life. The great questions which are to be de¬ 
cided are advertised, and, in the long run, 
measures that are for the common good are 
agreed to by the majority of the people and 
made the law of the land.” 

Making the party a powerful factor in pro- 


POLITICAL PARTIES 


101 


viding the needs of all the people is the only 
thing that can justify its existence, that can 
be worthy of the support of the people, and 
that can secure an enduring and healthy party 
loyalty. If the people knew what is going on 
in the dark rooms of party control, they would 
correct the wrong. Instead of leaving the 
management of their party in the hands of a 
small group of uncertain men who frequently 
put jobs above ideals, they would exercise the 
high duty of taking charge of their own party 
and seeing that it was conducted in the in¬ 
terest of the people. The time is here when 
the real American puts his country above his 
party and his party above a job or commer¬ 
cialized politics. This is the new political 
morality which will control in the future. 


CHAPTER XV 
THE BALLOT BOX 

The sooner every citizen of America under¬ 
stands that jthere is a patriotism of the ballot 
box, that every individual has, without any 
choice on his part, inherited civic affirmation 
and responsibility, and that it is his duty to 
exercise his right of suffrage, the sooner we will 
have better government. No man, no woman 
has the right not to participate in the adminis¬ 
tration of his government through a patriotic 
use of the ballot. 

The greater Democracy will demand an elec¬ 
tion day that will be the most sacred and com¬ 
manding event in the life of the community, 
the state, and the nation; an election that will 
have civic responsibility and enough patriot¬ 
ism, intelligence, and leadership to interpret 
the principles and the ideals of freedom into 
deeds; an election that will prompt the people 
to regard the privilege of voting — and of 
voting right at any cost — as a sacred obliga¬ 
tion they owe their country; an election that 
will challenge the patriotism of any man who 
refuses to respond to the call of his country 
102 


THE BALLOT BOX 


103 


at the ballot box on election day and to cast 
a ballot that has an American conscience in it; 
an election that will purify the fountains of 
justice and drive the desecrator of the purity 
of the ballot, the civic loafer and floater, from 
the land, destroy the political manipulator and 
boss, break the unscrupulous machine, which 
is the most undemocratic thing on earth, into 
a thousand pieces, and put the control of the 
political party into the hands of the people of 
the party where it belongs and where it must 
remain, if we are to have good government; 
an election that will cause every citizen to 
realize that there is a battle line at the ballot 
box as well as on the battlefield. 

Notwithstanding the fact that American 
patriotism is positive and must be willing to 
suffer, sacrifice, and work in the affirmative, 
there has grown up in this country a strange 
citizen who seems to think he is a patriot, and 
that the only way to be a real patriot is to 
avoid taking an interest in the administration 
of his government. This citizen usually means 
well. He is inherently loyal, and when his 
patriotism is aroused, he will always do the 
right things. Unfortunately for him and for 
his country, however, he most often fails to 
interpret the spirit of America. “Some have 


104 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

said/’ wrote Cato, “that it is not the business 
of private men to meddle with government — 
a bold and dishonest saying, which is fit to 
come from no mouth but that of a tyrant or a 
slave. To say that private men have nothing 
to do with government is to say that private 
men have nothing to do with their own happi¬ 
ness or misery; that people ought not to con¬ 
cern themselves whether they be naked or 
clothed, fed or starved, deceived or instructed, 
protected or destroyed.” 

Many citizens will tell you that government 
is in the hands of the wicked, and that no 
good citizen can afford to take an interest in 
politics or offer himself for public office. The 
greatest citizen in this land is scarcely good 
enough to merit the privilege of living, work¬ 
ing, and voting in the fields of freedom. 
Democracy inherently demands progress 
through vitalized leadership, honesty, intelli¬ 
gence, and patriotic voting. Too good! Who 
said so? That undesirable and possibly that 
most dangerous of citizens who stands in 
Democracy’s house and without protest per¬ 
mits the civic incendiary to apply the torch 
that may consume the house of liberty. Too 
good! Who said so? Not Washington, not 
Jefferson, not Lincoln, not Wilson, but that 


THE BALLOT BOX 


105 


citizen with a faint heart and cloudy patriot¬ 
ism who grumbles about bad government and 
who stays at home on election day and sells 
his vote to himself by doing a day’s work in his 
own endeavor. In a Democracy civic neglect 
is a crime, and a lazy public conscience is a 
peril. “To let politics,” wrote Howard Crosby, 
“become a cesspool, and then avoid it because 
it is a cesspool, is a double crime. No man 
should be a partisan in the sense of one who 
votes for his party, right or wrong.” 

There is no higher duty in a Democracy than 
a zealous participation of its citizenship in the 
affairs of the government. If there is one 
peril that threatens our country more than 
any other, it is the peril of civic indifference, 
the peril that comes from a sleepy public 
conscience. Civic righteousness will rule in 
a Democracy and the people will enjoy the 
blessings of liberty, provided they take an af¬ 
firmative position in the administration of gov¬ 
ernment. The highest hopes of the people 
rest on an awakened citizenship, a crystallized 
public sentiment that looks toward the east 
and fights behind the guns of freedom and 
from the fortifications of Democracy. 

Something is seriously wrong with our polit¬ 
ical life when thousands of voters treat elec- 


106 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


tion day with almost criminal indifference. If 
the people of America did not have the privi¬ 
lege of voting, they would give the last drop 
of blood in their veins and the last dollar in 
their possession to acquire this inalienable 
right. War would exist, and America would 
be painted red with the blood of our noble 
sons until this inherent right was accom¬ 
plished. 

The right to vote has come to America 
through the fire and blood of ages, through the 
principles of the Magna Charta, through the 
door of the Mayflower , and through the con¬ 
secration and sacrifice of our fathers. Not¬ 
withstanding this fact many citizens treat the 
sacred ballot with indifference. They stay at 
home unless they are reminded that it is elec¬ 
tion day, and then they sometimes refuse to 
vote. Frequently, when they vote, they are 
hauled to the voting precinct in conveyances 
paid for out of corrupt campaign funds put up 
by invisible interest and designing men that 
seek to subsidize the government. America is 
worth enough to justify every one of us in 
walking from San Francisco to New York in 
order to exercise the sacred privilege of voting. 
“The universe is not rich enough to buy the 
vote of an honest man.” 


THE BALLOT BOX 


107 


Prior to the last presidential election Haley 
Fiske wrote: “From 1888 to 1912 the vote 
for President of the United States increased 
at the rate of about 600,000 ballots every 
four years. In 1916 it reached 18,528,743 
votes, an increase of 3,497,574 in four years. 

“In 1920, with women voting in many states, 
the total was 26,705,346; but large as that 
figure was, it was disappointing, since the men 
who might have voted numbered 27,661,880, 
and the women numbered 26,759,952 — a total 
of 54,421,832. 

“This is the first national election in which 
complete universal suffrage will be effective in 
the United States. If the fidelity of women to 
civic duty equals their devotion to home and 
family, their vote, should equal the vote of the 
men and the total exceed 50,000,000. 

“The task before the people of the United 
States, men and women, is to make Democracy 
secure and to keep it secure. That will take 
all their strength, will tax our intelligence to 
the utmost, and call for our keenest vigilance. 
Voting is our privilege, our obligation, perhaps 
even our burden. But it is also our most 
effective weapon. Short of serious illness, no 
excuse for failing to vote can pass muster. 
Whether election day brings heat or cold. 


108 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

rain or shine, calm or blizzard, get to the polls 
and vote.” 

In 1924, with women voting, the total vote 
cast for Coolidge, Davis, and La Follette was 
29,091,417. This was but little over one half 
of the legal voters of this country. Coolidge 
was elected President, notwithstanding he 
received only 15,725,016 votes, less than one 
third of the total number of citizens who had 
the right of suffrage. Democracy was estab¬ 
lished upon the principle of a majority rule, 
and it will not function properly until this 
principle is expressed in the conduct of the 
people on election day. 

Citizens who serve their country sparingly 
on election day, and at other times have no 
vision of what the establishment of human 
rights has cost, fail to interpret the heroism 
and the suffering of nineteen centuries. They 
fail to dream the dreams of Washington. They 
fail to hear the tolling of the bell at the old 
meeting-house at Lexington. They fail to 
interpret the principles of the Declaration of 
Independence. They fail to visualize and to 
vindicate the lives of our fathers, who put 
freedom above everything. 

Daniel Webster said: “Nothing will ruin 
the country if the people themselves will un- 


THE BALLOT BOX 


109 


dertake its safety; and nothing can save it if 
they leave that safety in any hands but their 
own.” There is enough real life in this coun¬ 
try, if awakened and organized behind pro¬ 
grams of patriotic action, to solve every educa¬ 
tional, social, political, and industrial prob¬ 
lem before the people. Spiritual and industrial 
life in a democratic community is not likely 
to rise higher than its government. If the 
ballot fails, everything will ultimately fail. 
The people should either stop complaining or 
else take an affirmative interest in the vital 
questions before the country and an active 
part in the administration of their government. 
The people of a Democracy through their 
civic conduct get the kind of government they 
order. “ All free governments,” wrote Lowell, 
“ whatever their name, are in reality govern¬ 
ments by public opinion; and it is on the qual¬ 
ity of this public opinion that their prosperity 
depends.” 

We need schools that will stand at the life 
anvil of every child and assist in forging a 
civic freeman; schools that will accompany 
the voter to the voting precinct and prompt 
the hand to cast an honest ballot; schools that 
will bring the ballot box and the people closer 
together; and schools that will develop a 


110 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

civic awakening and brand and publicly dis¬ 
grace any individual who barters a public 
trust and who offers to buy or sell the sacred 
ballot. 


CHAPTER XVI 

DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION 

When we look deeply into the sources of 
influence that must administer, rule, and per¬ 
petuate our country, we discover that the 
education of all of the people for their chosen 
work is not a question of choice, conscious 
design, or a deliberate mental act, but an 
inevitable and inherent relation from which 
the citizen cannot escape. The Declaration of 
Independence is the greatest educational pro¬ 
gram ever presented in the world. Its own 
fundamentals depend upon universal intelli¬ 
gence and righteousness. 

When Thomas Jefferson, the world’s cham¬ 
pion of a practical Democracy, declared the 
consent of the governed to be the true founda¬ 
tion of all just authority, he affirmed his al¬ 
legiance to a school system that educates the 
masses and gives each person an opportunity 
to prepare for his chosen work. Government 
by the consent of the governed demands a gov¬ 
ernment built upon a system of education 
that seeks to develop ideals of justice and serv¬ 
ice. In a Democracy consent in the hands of 
111 


112 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

a starving, unproductive, intolerant, ignorant 
citizenship would become an anarchy. There 
is no such thing as a free country without free 
men, and we cannot have a free and en¬ 
lightened citizenship without free and efficient 
schools. 

The school, like the stars and stripes, in¬ 
herits unity, patriotic unity, community spon¬ 
taneity, sacrifice, and loyalty. When the 
people understand that the school is a citadel 
of freedom, a fundamental necessity to life, 
liberty, and property, and that it would be as 
easy for an individual to live in the center of 
the Sahara Desert without shelter and food 
as it would be for a free government to exist 
without moral, intellectual, and physical sup¬ 
port, they will rally around the school for the 
same reason they fight for the flag. No citi¬ 
zen can turn his back upon the school without 
turning his back upon the flag. 

No man who is for his country, who is for 
the accomplishment of the ideals of a free 
Democracy, can consistently be against the 
school. He cannot be even negatively for it, 
for he has inherited a progressive relationship 
and cannot escape this responsibility. With 
the exception of the public school most or¬ 
ganizations of this country are largely ex- 


DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION 113 

elusive. “The family, the church, the political 
party, the social classes, the endless social 
groups and organizations, commercial, in¬ 
dustrial, fraternal, purely social — all are 
exclusive and have exclusive interest. They 
can never develop the ethical spirit as a com¬ 
munity spirit, a spirit that transcends all such 
bonds and feels that its supreme membership 
is in the whole community and that the great¬ 
est good is that which may be shared by every 
human being in the community.” The public 
school is inherently a community center, a 
common ground upon which all of the people 
can unite in the interest of spiritual and ma¬ 
terial progress. Fiske wrote: “Let us cherish 
our public schools as the looms, and our teach¬ 
ers as the weavers who weave the wondrous 
destiny for the nations.” 

We cherish public education because it is 
the friend of the boys and girls. It belongs to 
Democracy. It is every man’s friend, and 
above all it is the poor man’s friend. It is not 
only for the cities but for the country. It is not 
only for the home that stands beside the street 
but for the cabin that stands beside the lonely 
country road. It knocks at the door of the 
poor and at the door of the rich. It knocked 
at the door of my humble home when I was a 


114 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

boy and gave me and my eight brothers a 
glimpse of a new world. We cherish it be¬ 
cause it is going to give the boys and girls that 
take advantage of it something that is more 
valuable than gold. In one of his great ad¬ 
dresses Daniel Webster said: “Education, 
to accomplish the ends of good government, 
should be universally diffused. Open the doors 
of the schoolhouse to all the children in the 
land. Let no man have the excuse of poverty 
for not educating his own offspring. Place the 
means of education within his reach, and if 
they remain in ignorance, be it his own re¬ 
proach. On the diffusion of education among 
the people rests the preservation and per¬ 
petuation of our free institution.” 

Until I was twenty-one years of age I at¬ 
tended a humble rural school which was 
taught in a log schoolhouse from six to eight 
weeks each year. During this time I learned 
to read, write, and cipher. If you could put 
in one place all the money and material as¬ 
sets of this country and at another place 
what little I learned at that poor, inadequate 
school, and you would give me the privilege 
of taking the former and going through life 
an illiterate, or living an honest life in a hovel 
and enjoying the privilege of reading and 


DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION 115 

studying the thoughts and movements of the 
world with the latter, I would choose the 
latter. This is what I think of the humblest 
public school. The school is not always what 
it should be, but it is far better than no school 
at all. Without it freedom would perish from 
the face of the earth. 

Every idler and knocker, every poor school 
and every child absent from school, every 
illiterate, every jail and penitentiary build¬ 
ing, every criminal in every jail and peniten¬ 
tiary, every case of preventable disease, every 
unskilled laborer, every poor housekeeper, 
every unqualified preacher, teacher, doctor, 
lawyer, every inefficient and dishonest public 
official, and every other incompetent work¬ 
man in every other human endeavor reminds 
us most forcefully of lost opportunity and of 
social and economic waste. Ruskin said: 
“There is only one cure for public distress, 
and that is public education directed to make 
men more thoughtful, merciful, and just.” 
Lord Macaulay wrote: “For every pound 
you save in education, you will spend five 
pounds in prosecutions, in prisons, and in 
penal settlements.” Thomas Jefferson wrote: 
“If the children are untaught, their crimes 
and vices will, in the future, cost us much 


116 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

dearer than they would have done in their 
correction by good education.’’ The distance 
between an inadequate and undemocratic 
education and an adequate democratic edu¬ 
cation of the masses of the people is Democ¬ 
racy’s yardstick, which it uses in measuring 
its social and industrial efficiency and in eval¬ 
uating the future opportunities. 

Public education has fought for every ad¬ 
vancement it has made from its beginning to 
the present time. It has frequently been the 
subject of unjust and unsubstantiated at¬ 
tacks, but it has made wonderful progress 
and will in the future make even greater 
progress. Nearly 23,000,000 children were 
enrolled in the free public schools in 1922. 
At least one person in every five in the United 
States is at present attending a free public 
school. The Research Bulletin of the Na¬ 
tional Education Association issued in Sep¬ 
tember, 1924, says: “In 1870 six children of 
every ten from five to eighteen years of age 
were enrolled in a public school. In 1922 
eight of every ten children from five to eight¬ 
een were enrolled in a public school. Not 
only are more children enrolled, but more of 
those enrolled are attending regularly. In 1870 
all public elementary and secondary schools 


DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION 117 

provided 539,053,423 days of schooling. In 
1922 they provided 3,022,882,932 days of 
schooling. If the general population of the 
United States had increased as rapidly as school 
attendance between 1870 and 1922, we would 
have 216,227,633 people in the United States 
at the present time. If the population of the 
United States had increased as rapidly as 
its high-school enrollment since 1890, its gen¬ 
eral population would now be 687,861,581. 
The public schools have lifted the general 
level of education in the United States. In 
1880 there were 6,239,958 illiterates, those 
who had had 4 no schooling whatever.’ In 
1920 there were 4,931,905 in this class. One 
person in every six in 1880 was without school¬ 
ing. At the present time one in seventeen 
has had no school training. In spite of the 
fact that schools are still practically non¬ 
existent in some communities and that mil¬ 
lions of foreign-born illiterates have been 
admitted since 1880, there has been some 
progress made in reducing the total number 
of illiterates. Each decade since 1890 has 
shown some decrease in the number of people 
in the United States who have had 4 no school¬ 
ing whatever.’” 

It is the duty of Democracy to see to it 


118 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OE DEMOCRACY 

that not another illiterate is grown in this 
country and to give every adult illiterate who 
desires to improve his life a chance to learn to 
read and write and to interpret thought. 
The United States has the highest percentage 
of illiteracy among the enlightened nations 
of the world. In 1922 the percentage of 
illiterates in Germany was .2; Denmark .2; 
Switzerland .5; Netherlands .6; Finland .9; 
Norway 1; Sweden 1; Scotland 1.6; England 
and Wales 1.8; France 4.9; United States 
6. In 1920 there were 4,931,905 illiterates 
in the United States. This number includes 
only confessed illiterates or persons who de¬ 
clared that they were unable to read and 
write. It does not include near illiterates. 

The Federal Census Report says: “If a 
person has had even the slightest amount 
of schooling, he is not classed as an illiterate.” 
The bulletin for American Educational Week, 
issued by the National Educational Associa¬ 
tion, says: “The mere ability to write one’s 
name may be considered sufficient for the great 
mass of those living in an absolute monarchy. 
In a Democracy where all may vote such a low 
standard cannot be accepted. A person is 
really not literate in a Democracy until he is 
able to read and write with a degree of facility 


DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION 119 

necessary to the intelligent discharge of his 
duties as a citizen. The definition of illiteracy 
in the Federal Census is keyed nearer to the 
needs of an absolute monarchy than to those 
of a great Democracy. In addition to the 
nearly five million illiterates enumerated by the 
last Federal Census, there are other millions 
who deserve to be classified as illiterates in 
that they lack that degree of educational attain¬ 
ment necessary to discharge intelligently 
their duties as citizens in a Democracy.” 
It is estimated that under the definition 
of an illiterate used by the army draft 
there would be approximately 15,000,000 
illiterates in the United States. The total 
vote cast for Coolidge, Davis, and La Follette 
in 1924 was 29,090,417. Under this classifi¬ 
cation there was more than one illiterate in 
the United States for every two votes cast in 
the last presidential election. 

Of the 4,931,905 illiterates in the United 
States 1,109,875 are native white, and 
4,333,111 are over twenty-one years of age. 
Saying nothing of spiritual values, the eco¬ 
nomic loss in the United States through illit¬ 
eracy amounts to enormous sums. Franklin 
K. Lane, when Secretary of the Interior, 
said: “The country is losing $825,000,000 


120 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

a year through illiteracy. This estimate is 
no doubt under rather than over the real loss. 
The federal government and the states spend 
millions of dollars in trying to give informa¬ 
tion to the people in rural districts about 
farming and home-making. Yet 3,700,000, 
or 10 per cent of our country folk, cannot 
read or write a word. They cannot read a 
bulletin on agriculture, a farm paper, a news¬ 
paper, the Constitution of the United States, 
or their Bibles, nor can they keep personal or 
business accounts.” 

Is America financially able to educate her 
people? The following information will aid 
in answering this question: The total national 
wealth in 1922 was $320,803,862,000; the 
average yearly income is $65,000,000,000; 
the amount in savings accounts in 1922 was 
$17,331,479,000. The Chicago Tribune says: 
“The United States, though only 5.7% of 
the world’s territory and including about 
6.2% of the world’s population, produces 60% 
of the world’s pig iron, 53% of the world’s 
copper, 43% of the world’s coal, 72% of the 
world’s petroleum, 52 % of the world’s cotton, 
46 % of the world’s lumber, and has 40 % of 
the world’s developed horsepower. We have 
not only vast riches of nature, but vaster 


DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION 121 

riches of national character for the develop¬ 
ment of nature’s gifts for the enrichment of 
our lives.” 

In 1924 the nation spent for automobiles 
and accessories $4,057,000,000; cigars, ciga¬ 
rettes, tobacco, and snuff $1,847,000,000; bev¬ 
erages (non-alcoholic), ice cream, sodas, etc. 
$820,000,000; theaters, movies, and other 
amusements $934,000,000; candy $689,000,- 
000; jewelry, watches, etc. $453,000,000; 
firearms and shells $67,000,000; pianos, 
organs, phonographs, etc. $440,000,000; sport¬ 
ing goods, games and toys, cameras, etc. 
$431,000,000; fur articles $333,000,000; per¬ 
fumes and cosmetics $261,000,000; chewing 
gum $87,000,000; making a total cost for 
luxuries $10,419,000,000. Expenditures for 
all governmental activities except education 
during the same period was $8,884,614,781. 
During the same year the total expenditures 
for elementary and high-school education 
amounted to $1,036,151,209. 

It is our duty to recognize and answer 
Democracy’s call for education and more 
abundant education; ideas and more noble 
ideas; more government by the teacher and 
less government by the policeman; more 
government by the schoolhouse and less 


122 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


government by the military camp; more and 
better schools and fewer jails and peniten¬ 
tiaries; more scholars and fewer criminals; 
more freemen and fewer slaves; more life 
and still more life. We need more life, and 
every patriot will join in the great work of 
putting at the door of every child in the land 
a modern schoolhouse with equipment and 
sanitation, a democratized course of study, 
and a teacher of scholarship, character, and 
personality. Democracy believes in a public 
policy and efficiency that will ring the moral, 
intellectual, and industrial “rising bell” in 
the life of every child in the land. 

A countless number of men with the ele¬ 
ments of greatness in them have lived and 
died without realizing that a giant slumbered 
in their souls. This country is dotted with 
graves marking the last resting places of 
thousands of men who were created to be 
leaders, but who died without having dis¬ 
covered themselves and their opportunities 
and without having known their powers. 
Herbert Hoover wrote: “As a race we produce 
a considerable percentage of persons in each 
generation who have the intellectual and moral 
qualities for the moral and intellectual in¬ 
spiration of others, for the organization and 


DEMOCRACY AND PUBLIC EDUCATION 123 

administration of our gigantic economic and 
intellectual machinery, and for invention and 
creation. I believe that we lose a large portion 
of those who could join these ranks because 
we fail to find them, to train them rightly, to 
create character in them, and to inspire them 
to effort. Our teachers are necessarily the 
army of inspectors in our nation who must find 
these individuals and who must stimulate 
them forward.” 

Our country’s greatest asset is not in her 
rich acres of land teeming with a laughing 
harvest; it is not in her mountains and hills 
bursting with mineral wealth; it is not in her 
rivers of unharnessed water power; it is not 
in her beautiful parks, cities, public buildings, 
and commerce. We value these rich blessings, 
but we value more than these our boys and 
girls. Childhood is our greatest asset and the 
hope of our future country. Edward Grover 
wrote: “I believe in boys and girls, the men 
and women of a great tomorrow; that what¬ 
ever the boy soweth the man shall reap. I 
believe in the curse of ignorance, in the efficacy 
of schools, in the dignity of teaching; and in 
the joy of serving others. I believe in wisdom 
as revealed in human lives as well as in the 
pages of the printed book, in lessons taught. 


124 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

not so much by precept as by example; in 
ability to work with the hands as well as to 
think with the head; in everything that makes 
life large and lovely. I believe in laughter, in 
love, in faith, in all ideals and distant hopes 
that lure us on. I believe that every hour of 
every day we receive a just reward for all we 
are and all we do. I believe in the present and 
its opportunities, in the future and its prom¬ 
ises, in the divine joy of living.” 


CHAPTER XVII 
THE SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 

The school that is built upon the nature and 
aspirations of the child and upon human needs 
and justice is a democratized school that will 
pour the red blood of intelligence and integ¬ 
rity, of democratic inspiration and progress, 
into the civic, social, and industrial arteries of 
the community through human aggressiveness 
and through the spontaneity of a patriotic and 
ethical people. It will not accomplish this 
task, however, unless it is founded upon social 
and industrial justice and is vitalized through 
and through with leadership and the spirit of 
service. Make the school, in its broadest 
sense, a Democracy, a militant and unselfish 
life, and it will stimulate every fiber of life in 
the community. 

The school of tomorrow will be built upon 
human needs. The inalienable rights of each 
individual will be considered. The home, the 
shop, the factory, the farm, the public high¬ 
way, and the community will become labora¬ 
tories for this school. It will be cultured, 
socialized, industrialized, and democratized. 

125 


126 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

It will improve the productive capacity of all 
the people and, at the same time, vitalize 
wealth with the spirit of service. It will take 
poverty and misery out of the home and crown 
it with life. It will be a school “of the people, 
by the people, and for the people.” It will be 
the most vital organ in the community body, 
the source of the currents of life, a fountain 
of Democracy. 

A democratized school becomes a part of 
the organic life of the community and of the 
state and an enduring and permanent success, 
because the people realize that it increases 
health, human energy, productivity, and hap¬ 
piness and promotes the principles of Democ¬ 
racy, and because it demands that every 
human niche in government, in society, in 
commerce be filled by a citizen who feels, 
knows, and bears responsibility, who fills his 
niche with vision, poised character, and 
vitalized activity, and who realizes that demo¬ 
cratic life is occupied life, which has intelli¬ 
gence and Christian ballast. 

If the school has in its organism positive 
power to teach, to impart information to 
others, and to stimulate the child to give up 
the smaller effort for the larger effort with a 
rising faith in its ability to achieve, it will 


THE SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 127 

accomplish these results largely without 
mechanical efforts. It will teach and influence, 
because it has dynamic leadership, because it 
has a depth of soul and a breadth of informa¬ 
tion, because its courses of study, its spirit, 
its vision, its ideals, its motives, and its pa¬ 
triotism are moral, patriotic, and just, and 
because the school itself is a great lesson in 
morality and Democracy. It would be as 
easy for a great tree some bright summer 
afternoon to withhold its shade from the earth 
as it would be for a school that is vitalized 
with the currents of Democracy to withhold 
its enriching life from a democratic com¬ 
munity. 

The greater education will have less of the 
school machine and more freedom; less of the 
control of the school by mechanical and dead 
rules and more control by the ruling spirit of 
Democracy; less of mechanical devices and 
more individuality and initiative; less of the 
grinding routine and more human spontaneity; 
less of the molding process and more of the 
growing process; less of the supervised and 
inflexible course of study and more teacher- 
leadership and responsibility that is capable of 
interpreting the needs of the community and 
of the pupil. 


128 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

The rule of the school that is going to make 
great citizens is not a printed placard on the 
walls of the school building, mechanically 
telling the pupil what he must do and must not 
do, but it is a desire, a purpose in the life of 
the school, that influences the pupil to do 
what a lady or a gentleman would do. It is 
not a signboard posted on the school grounds, 
pointing its artificial finger at the pupils, 
notifying them to keep off the grass, but it is 
a patriotism, a vision of duty, that makes 
them take an interest in civic beauty and in 
making the world a beautiful place in which 
to live. It is not nails driven through a plank 
in the windows to keep boys from sitting in 
them but nails driven in the mind and con¬ 
science. It is not a blue button standing for 
a good boy and for school loyalty, worn on 
the lapel of the coat, but a duty worn in the 
soul. It is not a switch but a moral spon¬ 
taneity, responsibility, and initiative that 
exists in the life of the school, that corrects 
the wrong and applauds the right. It is not 
a gold medal offered for intellectual achieve¬ 
ments and for the best oration but a desire 
to have more life and to render more service 
to humanity in this interesting world. It is 
not the approach to a dead school day filled 


129 


THE SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 

with mechanical duties but an eagerness to 
rise early in the morning and go to work, 
making a real fishing tackle before starting 
on a cruise in new and interesting waters. 
Edwin D. Starbuck writes: “Use the entire 
school program for training in character. We 
are ceasing to regard the moral life as a special 
compartment of the entire personality. For 
the most part we must desist from setting 
aside times and seasons for special instruc¬ 
tions in morals. The good person is not good 
in an abstract and general way. He is one who 
habitually meets every vital situation grace¬ 
fully, thoughtfully, helpfully, and ideally. 
Whenever difficult situations arise naturally 
in the course of studies or in the occupations 
of the school, these must be met with all 
the tact, seasoned judgment, and sustained 
thinking that teacher and pupil can summon. 
Progressively, as children grow older, these 
occasions will more frequently arise and de¬ 
mand the most acute discrimination of right 
from wrong attitudes, the most painstaking 
definitions or moral concepts, and groupings and 
classifications of the virtues. There is hardly 
any limit to the acumen and refinement of 
thought children can command when they 
face a real situation. There is hardly any 


130 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

thinking to which they can be driven when 
forced up against any artificial situation.” 

No school that is not itself aglow with en¬ 
thusiasm for knowledge, refinement, beauty, 
sincerity, truth, and righteousness can kindle 
in those under its charge this flame of higher 
life. I cannot think of anything that is more 
pathetic than for a school executive to preach 
the gospel of high ideals and good citizenship 
to the world when he fails to make the stand¬ 
ard himself, when his own school board is 
at war over some petty school item; when the 
members of the faculty are jealous of each 
other’s success and salary and do not have 
pleasure in each other’s achievements; when 
the student-body is divided into factions, 
fraternities, and academic aristocracies, each 
declaring dividends for vandalism, for hazing, 
and for exclusiveness rather than for the rule 
of sympathy, interest, and fellowship. 

I have no objection to formal, moral train¬ 
ing in the school, but I believe it is best ac¬ 
complished through the ethical nature of man, 
constructive chapel exercises and recitations, 
debating societies, school games, spontaneous 
moral enthusiasm, and student and faculty 
loyalty to lofty ideals. I believe that the 
growing of patriotic citizens in a school for 


THE SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 131 

service in a Democracy is best accomplished 
through a militant school sentiment that en¬ 
forces the right and challenges the wrong, and 
through a contagion of personality that pushes 
and pulls and influences the community, by 
making it strong in productivity, strong in 
body, strong in mind, strong in heart, noble in 
conduct, and responsible for the ideals of the 
school and for the ideals of the community. 
The live school does not have to put its 
influence on when it rises in the morning 
in order that it may exert a good influence 
during the day, for its influence is its life; 
it is its leadership and its Democracy; it is 
what the school is and what it does. 

Undemocratic school rules made by blind 
school teachers have a tendency to make viola¬ 
tors of the law and to fill our penitentiaries 
with criminals. If we use corporal punishment 
or a mechanical rule to govern a child while in 
school, it may take a law and jail to govern him 
after he leaves school. The ethical child ex¬ 
periences a thrill whenever it cheats the school¬ 
master’s dogma and an artificial code of school 
regulations; and every time it has this ex¬ 
perience it is likely to have less respect for the 
dignity of the law and for constituted author¬ 
ity. School rules that are not founded upon 


132 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

justice, upon the ethical nature of man, and 
upon the ideals of an innate freedom and jus¬ 
tice have done much harm. 

A little girl nine years of age visited her 
little friend who was attending school. Her 
friend prepared her lunch early in the morn¬ 
ing and put it on the mantelpiece. While she 
was out of the room, her little visitor ate the 
lunch. When asked why she did it, she said: 
“You did not put it where I could not get it.” 
Much of our effort to train citizens in school 
for life in a Democracy accomplishes this kind 
of result. 

“Learn to live by living” should charac¬ 
terize the life of every school in the land. 
Actual life in the home, on the farm, in the 
shop, in the factory, in the store, on the way 
to and from school, in the recitation, on the 
athletic field, and in every other act and 
thought of the school must be vitalized if we 
would make good citizens out of the boys and 
girls and train them for life in a Democracy. 

The thought and conduct of the child of 
tomorrow depends upon the child of today. 
If we would make the boys and girls of to¬ 
morrow great citizens capable of responsibility, 
we must prepare them for future citizenship. 
We must start out with the idea that the child 


THE SCHOOL IN A DEMOCRACY 


133 


is already a citizen of responsibility, and that 
it is just as impossible to make a great boy 
without putting responsibility upon his life 
as it would be for one to be a great man with¬ 
out recognizing his obligations to society. 
We must teach the child that — 

“If it should come to a river deep and wide, 

And there were no canoe to skim it, 

And its duty was on the other side, 

That it would jump in and swim it.” 

The child will not swim the river of tomor¬ 
row unless it swims the river of today. It will 
not live tomorrow unless it lives today. It is 
not likely to be moral tomorrow unless it is 
moral today. 


CHAPTER XVIII 

THE TEACHER AND DEMOCRACY 

The teacher has inherited patriotic respon¬ 
sibility and leadership. He is a personality 
born in the vision of free government. The 
only way to get along without the teacher is 
to abolish the school. If we do this, Democ¬ 
racy would languish and die, unless we should 
find some other institution to take the school’s 
place. If we should find such an institution, 
it would be a school or something the schools 
are trying to be. 

It would be as easy for the physical body to 
live without the physical heart as it would be 
for Democracy to live without the school. It 
would be as easy for Democracy to exist with¬ 
out spirit as it would be to have a good school 
without a good teacher. The larger Democ¬ 
racy must be accomplished through the larger 
education, and the larger education must be 
accomplished through the larger Democracy. 
Both must be largely accomplished through 
the teaching power and influence of an ade¬ 
quate number of adequately trained teachers 
who learn, who love, who serve. 

134 


THE TEACHER AND DEMOCRACY 135 

The state that has the men has the present, 
the state that has the schools has the future, 
and the state that has the teachers has the 
schools. It is a progressive statesmanship 
which realizes that whatever is desired in the 
life of the state must be developed in the life 
of the teachers who train the children of the 
state. We sometimes try to bring about 
school reform by external, mechanical meth¬ 
ods rather than by inspired leadership. So¬ 
ciety too frequently looks for a good school in 
an untried educational theory rather than in 
a personal resurrection and a professional 
regeneration. It is dangerous for educational 
reform to reach the school ahead of a trained 
and reformed teacher. Wherever you find 
educational efficiency you will find the com¬ 
manding personality and leadership of a 
teacher. Educational efficiency will not rise 
higher than educational leadership. 

The work of transmuting the school fund 
and all other money raised for education into 
effective human power and into a greater 
Democracy is the most vital economic and 
spiritual problem that is now before the 
people. Millions of dollars raised for educa¬ 
tion have been squandered upon inefficient 
teaching, and this waste will continue until 


136 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

stopped through the development of a quali¬ 
fied and stable teaching profession. Agri¬ 
cultural progress recognizes a waste in every 
nubbin ear of corn, and then it proceeds to 
make big ears of corn and to stop the waste 
by operating on the farmer. Fundamental 
educational progress recognizes every .poor 
school as a tremendous waste to the community 
and to the Commonwealth, and then it pro¬ 
ceeds to have a better school and to stop the 
waste by operating upon the teacher. 

The returns from the millions of dollars 
spent annually for the education of the chil¬ 
dren depend finally upon the character of the 
teachers employed in our schools; upon their 
mental, moral, and religious qualities and 
their ideals in life; upon their breadth, their 
depth, their fullness and fineness; upon their 
culture and their skill in teaching. Add to 
the qualifications and salary of the teacher, 
to the scope of work and influence of teacher¬ 
training schools, and to all other agencies 
that will develop teaching power, and we 
will subtract from a tremendous waste of the 
school fund and educational efforts and, at 
the same time, add to the intelligence and 
earning capacity of the people. 

Any citizen who tries to improve the educa- 


THE TEACHER AND DEMOCRACY 137 

tional affairs of the country by withholding 
needed material support from those institu¬ 
tions and from educational efforts designed 
to train teachers for a larger service and to 
make them worthy of a larger salary proceeds 
on the theory that the way to be rescued 
from a leaking boat is to make the leak larger 
and sink the boat. There is a leak in the 
school system through which millions of 
dollars are passing. This must be stopped 
through a better qualified, better paid, and 
more stable teaching profession. 

After all, the greatness of a school is not 
so much in school laws and systems, organi¬ 
zations, buildings, grounds, and equipment 
as it is in the life behind these things; not 
so much in the course of study as in the 
teacher’s vision of the needs of the pupils and 
of the community and in the ability of its 
teachers to interpret its course of study into ef¬ 
fective human power and service. We may 
study until our heads are white, or we may 
look the world over for a course of study 
that will prepare citizens for life in a De¬ 
mocracy, to find in the end that all of the 
ideal courses of study cannot be written in 
a book or outlined in a pamphlet but that 
it is in the vision, the character, and inter- 


138 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

preting power of the teachers. A live course 
of study will die in the hands of a dead 
teacher, and a dead course of study will be¬ 
come a live course of study in the hands of a 
live teacher. Real teaching is the essence of 
personality more than the essence of a course 
of study. Both are necessary. 

There are courses of study that are buried 
three feet under the ground and that will 
remain there until resurrection day unless the 
breath of life is breathed into them by a real 
teacher. There are school laws, enacted in 
the interest of reform, that have not breathed 
since they were entered upon the statutes. 

In order to be a little more definite, we 
might say that agriculture is in the course of 
study, and that nubbins are in the field. 
Dietetics is in the school, and dyspepsia is in 
the home. A sanitary cup is in the book of 
statutes, and an old tin cup hangs at the 
school well. 

We may have modern schoolhouses, longer 
school terms, local taxation, consolidation, 
and all other things that enter into a well- 
ordered school and school community, but 
without the vitalizing touch of qualified 
teachers, schoolhouses will become dead mat¬ 
ter, school terms will be too long, local taxa- 


THE TEACHER AND DEMOCRACY 139 

tion unprofitable, and consolidation a failure. 
Put a poor teacher in a good schoolhouse 
with its modern equipment and attractive 
grounds, and you will still have a poor school. 
Put a good teacher in a poor schoolhouse with 
poor equipment, and you will have a pretty 
good school, if not a good school, and, as a 
result of the influences of the teacher, you 
will in a short time have a modern school 
building, modern equipment, and a local edu¬ 
cational interest. 

Educational enthusiasm will leave the com¬ 
munity, it will go visiting, when the poor 
teacher enters the community. We must 
not minimize physical equipment and other 
outward necessities, but we must emphasize 
spiritual equipment. We must not subtract 
from the schoolhouse, but we must add to the 
teacher. “In all the ages since schools began 
the supreme value which attaches to the 
personality and skill of the teacher has been 
recognized, and in this scientific age when we 
are possessed of the spirit to evaluate and 
distribute merit, many have attempted to 
state numerically the relative value of the 
teacher in the scheme of the school. Build¬ 
ings, apparatus, and a teacher are the instru¬ 
ments used in the education of children. If 


140 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

the total effect of these three instrumentali¬ 
ties be rated at 100 per cent, what proportion 
of the total should be assigned to the teacher? 
Opinions will vary, but no discerning person 
will venture to rate the contribution of the 
teacher lower than 80 per cent of the total, 
and many will place it as high as 85 per 
cent.” 

Some of us would rather our children should 
attend a school conducted under a tent, or 
under a tree, or in a lighted cave, and be 
taught by a trained and free teacher of vision 
and initiative, for three months in the year, 
than to attend a school conducted in the most 
modern school building in this country and 
taught by a poor teacher, for ten months in 
the year. Every child, however, is entitled 
to a good schoolhouse with modern equip¬ 
ment and proper physical environment and 
a good teacher for nine or ten months in the 
year. 

There is a great citizen not far away whose 
early outlook upon life was gloomy. He had 
native ability but was without purpose and 
ambition. He entered a school that was 
taught by a great teacher who had given 
himself a rich preparation for his chosen work. 
The teacher was great in purpose, sympathy. 


THE TEACHER AND DEMOCRACY 141 


and service. The light of the teacher soon 
lighted up the life of the boy, and he decided 
to be and to do something in life. He said: 
“I am going to be an oculist. I am going to 
be the best oculist in this land.” An over¬ 
mastering purpose possessed him and became 
a faith, a fire, in the home of his soul. 

His teacher unconsciously led him to see 
that his success in the treatment of the eye 
depended upon his own ability to see, not 
only with the physical eye but with the eye 
of the spirit. He completed a preparatory 
course of study and then entered a higher 
institution of learning and graduated. Every¬ 
thing he did and everything he studied 
seemed to be related in some way or somehow 
to an effort to make the blind see. His pur¬ 
pose was a patriotism and not a commer¬ 
cialism, a service and not a salary, a life and 
not a vocation. 

He then entered a school that offered a 
special course arranged for the study of the 
eye and graduated with honors. He located 
in a small city and announced that he was 
ready to treat the eye. Only a few patrons 
came, however, and he was discouraged, but 
he had preparation, faith, and patience. 

There had lived in the little town for 


142 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


twenty-five years a blind man, and he went 
to the office of the young oculist one day and 
asked for eyes that would enable him to see. 
He had knocked at the door of other oculists 
only to be turned back into a dark world. 
The young oculist, fired by an effort to help 
the blind to see, made a trial of his faith. 
The light of his life lighted up the eyes of the 
blind man, and he was able to see. The 
people heard about the remarkable cure and 
came from all directions seeking light. In 
the preparation of this little story we have 
emphasized that the teacher is the oculist 
and the soul is the eye, that the school is the 
oculist and the community is the eye, and 
that the light of the eye and of the community 
depend upon the light of the oculist. 

Dr. George Palmer, distinguished educator, 
who has been an instructor in Harvard College 
for more than thirty years, says: “The whole 
notion of bargain is an inapplicable sphere 
where the gain of him that serves and who is 
served coincide and that is largely the case 
with the profession of teaching. Harvard 
College pays me for doing what I would gladly 
pay it for allowing me to do. The real pay¬ 
ment is the work itself; this and the chance to 
join with other members of the profession in 


THE TEACHER AND DEMOCRACY 143 

guiding and enjoying the sphere of its ac¬ 
tivities. The ideas sometime advanced that 
the profession might be ennobled by paying 
teachers liberally is fantastic. Their great 
attraction is their removal from sordid aims. 
More money should certainly be spent on the 
profession of teaching. Its members should 
be better protected against want, anxiety, 
and neglect. To do his best work one needs 
not merely to live, but to live well; but, in 
that increase of salary which is urgently 
needed, care should be used not to allow the 
attention of the teacher to be diverted from 
what is important, the product of his work, 
and become fixed on what is merely incidental, 
his income.” 

If the motive of the teacher does not rise 
higher than his salary, he will fail to accom¬ 
plish real results in the work of training citi¬ 
zens for effective service. The teacher’s ideal 
must travel ahead of the teacher’s salary, or 
the teacher’s profession will die. The real 
teacher would rather have a small salary and 
be qualified than to have a large salary and 
not be qualified. He is always more concerned 
about the ideals he is developing in the life of 
his pupils than he is about the number of dol¬ 
lars he receives. The ideal and the dollar 


144 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

cannot even walk arm in arm by each other’s 
side. The ideal must be ahead of the salary. 
This is the nature of the teaching profession. 
On the other hand, the teaching profession 
cannot have spirit, optimism, outlook, travel, 
and the comforts of life and prepare for effec¬ 
tive service without a just salary. No great 
teacher, however, regardless of the salary he 
has received, has ever been, or ever will be, 
fully paid in dollars and cents for the services 
he renders. The teacher receives two re¬ 
wards, one in a salary and the other in more 
life and a larger capacity for service. 


CHAPTER XIX 
EDUCATION AND COMMERCIALISM 

We have already emphasized in this book 
the fact that Democracy is an ideal and that 
it has unity of purpose and of effort. No man 
has ever seen a country or a part of a country 
with the physical eye. It is invisible, it is 
spiritual. It is a spiritual thought and service. 
We may boast of our houses and religious, 
educational, and public buildings, our roads, 
streets, and modern farms, our visible cities 
and industrial enterprises, and all other things 
constructed by human hands in the outward 
world, to find, in the end, that they are only 
photographs of the real community. 

Put the people of America in Russia and the 
people of Russia in America, and America will 
be in Russia and Russia will be in America. 
Material Russia would go up, and material 
America would go down. In a little while 
there would be peace and plenty in Russia and 
woe and want in America. There would be a 
shifting not only of spiritual values but of 
material values. Land that is now salable at 
high prices in the United States could then 

145 


146 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

be purchased for a song, and unmarketable 
lands in Russia would increase rapidly in 
values. What Russia needs is most of the 
things the United States has. What the 
United States needs is an increasing loyalty 
to the ideals that have made her great and less 
of the tendency to put commercial values over 
spiritual values. 

“A statesman may,” wrote Bancroft, “do 
much for commerce — most, by leaving it 
alone. A river never flows so smoothly as 
when it follows its own course, without 
either aid or check. Let it make its own bed; 
it will do so better than you can. Commerce 
defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and 
invades every zone.” Grow a healthy citizen, 
and you will develop a healthy commerce. 
Get the spiritual empire right, and the material 
empire will be right. Give the child a demo¬ 
cratic education, and you will have a demo¬ 
cratic government and a democratic commerce. 

A country depends upon spiritual geography 
more than it does upon physical geography. 
The number of square miles it contains, its 
material development, and even its popula¬ 
tion, when counted in the terms of construc¬ 
tive ideals, depend largely upon the character 
and productive capacity of its citizens. When 


EDUCATION AND COMMERCIALISM 147 

considered in the terms of personality and 
constructive ideals. Democracy enlarges her 
territory and her industrial life and increases 
her population through her efforts to develop 
a full-grown citizenship. It adds to its com¬ 
merce and increases its population by adding 
to its ideals and by increasing the productive 
capacity of her people. 

On this basis what would be the spiritual 
and material value and the population of 
America, if all her citizens were as strong in 
body, mind, and heart as Washington, Jef¬ 
ferson, Lincoln, or Wilson? What would be 
the result, if all of her citizens put dollars above 
ideals and a corporation above the govern¬ 
ment? What would be the result, if they had 
formal education, holding degrees from higher 
institutions of learning but were cunning, in¬ 
tellectual rascals, without civic integrity? 
What would be the result, if they were illiter¬ 
ates who could not read and write but had 
“that other thing” discussed elsewhere in this 
book? What would be the result, if they were 
illiterates who could read and write but did 
not have “that other thing”? What would be 
the result, if they had trained minds and 
“that other thing” but sick bodies? What is 
the result at the present time under the rule 


148 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

of our present citizenship? In whose hands 
would you place the flag? 

The citizen who honestly produces material 
wealth and puts it to work in the fields of 
service is a benefactor to his country. The 
citizen who chases dollars and runs from ideals 
and patriotic responsibilities, who takes 
advantage of his neighbor in a business trans¬ 
action, who drives a trade at the cost of 
principles, who dishonestly manipulates the 
market for selfish reasons, who makes millions 
on unjust profits, who uses his influence to 
have unjust laws enacted that will aid his 
business regardless of their effect upon the 
people, and who commercializes government 
for personal gain is a dangerous enemy to 
Democracy, if not an American traitor. 

The nation that gains material wealth and 
loses Democracy loses everything. The na¬ 
tion that gains material wealth through the 
principles and ideals of Democracy and then 
transmutes this wealth into a larger Democ¬ 
racy gains everything. It takes money with 
ideals of service in every dollar to make demo¬ 
cratic wealth. No nation gains anything unless 
it gains the capacity to make a proper use of 
its possessions. “Morality is the nature of 
things.” It is the nature of making and of 


EDUCATION AND COMMERCIALISM 149 

spending money, of business, of operating 
banks, railroads, and corporations, and of 
doing other things. Otherwise these things 
have no place in a Democracy. It is the 
nature of the citizen of limited means and of 
the millionaire; otherwise they are not real 
Americans. A citizen may have only one 
dollar and yet have too much, while another 
may have one million dollars and not have 
enough. This is the law of Democracy and of 
service. 

At this time, when the people are inclined 
to put dollars above ideals, when the atmos¬ 
phere is heavy with commercialism, when 
profiteers put profits above principles, and 
when the masses are calling for a system of 
vocational education that would increase their 
earning capacity and material possessions, it 
is important for us not to overlook the ethical 
side of education. After all, 4 'Education does 
not mean teaching people to know what they 
do not know, so much as it means teaching 
them to act as they do not act.” 

America has never taken a human life in 
order to gain an acre of land. She has never 
gone to war for gold and dominion, but she 
has given and she will give life and property in 
a spiritual conquest for principles, ideals, and 


150 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


justice. So long as this motive shapes her 
policy, stimulates her laws, and administers 
her government, she will continue to grow in 
spiritual and economic stature and be a com¬ 
manding power and influence in the world. 
What is the true value of a country? James 
Russell Lowell, in his classical essay Democ¬ 
racy, says: “I am saddened when I see our 
successes as a nation measured by the number 
of acres under tillage or the bushels of wheat 
exported; for the real value of a country must 
be weighed in scales more delicate than the 
Balance of Trade. The garners of Sicily are 
empty now, but the bees from all climes still 
fetch honey from the tiny garden of Theocritus. 
On a map of the world you may cover Judea 
with your thumb, Athens with a finger tip, and 
neither of them figures in the Prices Current; 
but they still lord it in the thought and action 
of every civilized man. Did not Dante cover 
with his hood all that was Italy six hundred 
years ago? Material success is good, but only 
as the necessary preliminary of better things. 
The measure of a nation’s true success is the 
amount it has contributed to the thought, to 
the moral energy, the intellectual happiness, 
the spiritual hope, and consolation of man¬ 
kind.” 


EDUCATION AND COMMERCIALISM 151 


I believe in the development of the inex¬ 
haustible material resources of our country, in 
a magnetic and sane material progress that 
will stimulate effort and efficiency in every 
honorable human endeavor, add new wealth 
to our personal holdings, and put red blood in 
the arteries of commerce. I believe in voca¬ 
tional and all other forms of training that will 
aid in living a full life. I believe in an educa¬ 
tional policy that will reach the homes of the 
land, improve the productive capacity of the 
people on the farm, in the factory, and else¬ 
where, and make the country rich in material 
things, but I would make the motives that 
prompt the effort a love, a service, a moral 
enthusiasm. 

It would be better for us to live on short ra¬ 
tions and to die in a hut, and yet preserve our 
spiritual and intellectual integrity, our chiv¬ 
alry, and our human sympathy, than to die 
rich in a mansion and be a commercialized, 
selfish people. Neither one is right. The 
remedy is in a proper use of our inalienable 
life and property privileges. The country has 
no higher function than to take advantage of 
these great principles. Our opportunity is in 
the people and in the nation’s inexhaustible 
resources. 


1 52 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

An intellectual but commercialized farmer 
said: 44 1 am going to plant a great crop of 
corn. I am sending the plow down deep, 
very deep. I am pulverizing the soil. The 
elements necessary to corn growth and large 
production are in my fertile land. I have 
good seed corn, a big ear of corn in every seed. 
I am going to grow corn, and then I will have 
more money. I will buy more land, loan more 
money at a splendid rate of interest to my 
neighbors, and have more money for every¬ 
thing my family wants, more money for 
ourselves and no more.” This is commer¬ 
cialism and not Democracy. This citizen did 
well as far as he went, but he did not go far 
enough. He did not plant a flag in his hills 
of corn. He did not vitalize his motives with 
44 that other thing.” He did not live 44 above 
the rim.” He did not grow democratic corn. 
The products of his information and labor 
stopped at his own door. Information alone 
is not democratic education. It may not be 
even a contribution to Democracy. 44 Wealth 
alone is an ugly beggar.” 

Another intellectual but democratic farmer 
said: 44 1 am going to plant a great crop of 
corn. I am sending the plow down deep, very 
deep. I am pulverizing the soil. The elements 


EDUCATION AND COMMERCIALISM 153 

necessary to corn growth and large production 
are in my fertile land. I have good seed corn, 
a big ear of corn in every seed. I am going to 
grow corn, and then I will have more money 
— more money to provide for the needs of our 
home, for the education of our children, for 
books and newspapers and current publica¬ 
tions for the library, for the church, the school, 
and good roads, and to aid in the work of 
making our home, our community, our state, 
and our nation a decent place in which to live. 
This is Democracy. This citizen vitalized his 
motives with the spirit of Valley Forge. He 
lived “ above the rim.” He planted a flag in 
every hill of corn. He had acquired a demo¬ 
cratic education. He grew democratic corn. 
Henry Van Dyke wrote: 

“Four things a man must learn to do 

If he would make his record true: 

To think without confusion, clearly; 

To love his fellowmen sincerely; 

To act from honest motives purely; 

To trust in God and heaven securely.” 

Mr. Van Dyke gives us in these lines a 
definition of democratic education and a con¬ 
stitution of permanent reform. 


CHAPTER XX 
INVISIBLE CAPITAL 

Shortly after the smoke of the Civil War 
had cleared away, a bouncing and promising 
boy entered this strenuous world, in a little 
log hut located among the sand hills of a 
Southern rural community. After much con¬ 
cern his parents decided they would name 
him after his uncle William, who had lost his 
life while following the Confederate flag. The 
boy was afterward called Bill by the members 
of his family and by all who knew him. 

Bill was watched and loved by his great 
father and mother, who lived in humble sur¬ 
roundings, but who were industrious and pro¬ 
gressive and believed in giving a boy a chance 
to live and a chance to grow. Bill grew strong 
in body and in spirit and was a promising boy 
at the age of six. His parents were not edu¬ 
cated but believed in education, and, as a 
result, Bill was sent to a little rural school 
which was conducted in a log schoolhouse. It 
was a humble school with modest surround¬ 
ings, not what it should have been, but his 

154 


INVISIBLE CAPITAL 155 

wise parents believed that most schools are 
better places for a boy to be in than not in any 
school at all. 

When Bill was ten years of age, his parents 
turned over to him for cultivation a little plot 
of land that was not more than forty yards 
square, and told him he might cultivate it 
during his spare moments and have all that he 
could produce upon it. This little plot of 
land made Bill quite happy, became to him a 
real farm, and made him a leader, a man of 
affairs, in his community. 

Bill was so busily engaged that he forgot to 
be an idler or even a bad boy. He bore re¬ 
sponsibility with the dignity of an “old timer.” 
He was industrious and did many kinds of 
work at home and on his father’s farm, but he 
seemed to enjoy working on his own farm more 
than anything else he did. He talked about his 
farm a great deal and told his mother one night 
that he really loved the dirt out on his place. 
It seemed* that Bill’s farm had got into his 
life, and that Bill’s life had got into his farm. 
It was hard to tell whether Bill was running 
the farm or the farm was running Bill. He 
would frequently sit in front of big wood fires 
during winter evenings and talk to his farm 
and have visions of crops which he intended 


156 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

to grow next year. He grew splendid crops, 
gathered and sold them for good prices, and 
deposited the money in his bank, which was a 
little tin box on the top of the lintel of his 
humble home. 

Bill could see the crops that grew on his 
farm, but he could not see the education he 
acquired at the school. He asked his mother 
what education was, and she said: “Bill, you 
have been a good boy. You have obeyed your 
father and your mother. You love your coun¬ 
try. You have attended Sunday school and 
church and have given some of your money to 
the Sunday school and the church, the public 
school, and to all efforts to build up the com¬ 
munity. You have loved your schoolmates 
and neighbors and have been interested in 
them. You have been kind to your sister and 
her companions. You have taken an active 
interest in your school, and the other day you 
filled up a mud hole that was in the middle of 
the public road that passed by our gate. You 
have been a good farmer and have been able 
to produce a better crop each year. You think 
more, and you have loved more, made more, 
and given more than heretofore. You have 
something in you that has made you a noble 
boy. You cannot see the thing that prompted 


INVISIBLE CAPITAL 


157 


and enabled you to do these things; it is what 
I call life, but some people call it Democracy.” 

Bill finished the equivalent of a common- 
school and a high-school course. After finish¬ 
ing his high-school work, he made sufficient 
money to go to a higher institution of learn¬ 
ing, where he graduated with honors. After 
graduating, he secured a good position, saved 
some of his money, and gave some of it to 
worthy causes. 

After accumulating about $3,000, Bill was 
seized with the Alaskan gold fever which 
spread over this country at that time, and he 
decided to go to the Klondike to get gold. He 
wanted gold, gold; and he decided to make a 
trial of his faith in the fields of Alaska, forget¬ 
ting that he had a gold mine in his education 
and in the spiritual and material opportunities 
offered in America. Bill gave up his position 
and purchased a ticket for Seattle, Washing¬ 
ton. 

On arriving in Seattle, he bought an out¬ 
fit for the trip to Alaska. He purchased a long 
knife, a pistol, a Winchester rifle, provisions 
enough to last for two years, a fur suit of 
clothes that would enable him to sleep on the 
snow with perfect comfort, a sled, and other 
things. His equipment was loaded on a ship, 


158 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

and he sailed for Skagway. On reaching Skag¬ 
way, he started in search of gold across the 
rugged and dangerous path which led along 
the edge of rugged cliffs and over swollen and 
dangerous streams. The sled was loaded to 
its capacity and was pulled by Bill for a dis¬ 
tance of two miles and unloaded. Another 
load was transported for a distance of two 
miles, and this effort was repeated until he 
had moved all of his equipment up a distance 
of two miles. This effort was repeated for two 
miles farther, and then for two miles farther, 
until he had traveled for sixty-two days toward 
the Klondike. 

On being awakened one night, Bill found 
that he was in the hands of a band of despera¬ 
does. He was ordered by their leader, who 
was known and feared all over Alaska, to 
make no resistance, and while looking up the 
barrel of a Winchester rifle, he wisely agreed 
to the terms of the desperadoes. Everything 
he had was taken with the exception of some 
of his clothing and enough food to enable him 
to get back to Skagway. He started on his 
return trip, wondering what would become 
of him. He was thrown into a swollen stream 
and was rescued by a group of government men 
some three hundred yards below the point 


INVISIBLE CAPITAL 


159 


where he had attempted to cross the stream. 
He finally reached Skagway, scarred in body 
but hopeful in spirit. Everybody told him 
that there was no work in Skagway a person 
could get to do. 

While sitting around a stove in the back end 
of a store earnestly studying what he could do 
to secure money with which to provide for a 
night’s lodging and something to eat, he dis¬ 
covered that he had in his possession $90,000. 
Ninety thousand dollars in bonds! Ninety 
thousand dollars in spiritual bond! Ninety 
thousand dollars in that invisible thing his 
mother called life but others called education 
and Democracy. A leading official stepped up 
to Bill and said: 44 Go with me. I will give you 
$3,600 annually. We will pay you this amount 
for the splendid thing we call education which 
refused to surrender to the band of desperadoes 
on the path.” Bill decided for the first time 
that his gold mine was in himself, and not in 
the Alaskan gold fields. Thirty-six hundred 
dollars capitalized him, on a four per cent ba¬ 
sis, at $90,000. Bill went to work and made 
a reputation for rendering efficient and pains¬ 
taking service. 

The following letter was written by Bill to 
his parents on his return to Skagway: 


160 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


My dear Father and Mother: 

I have had an experience. After all, it takes a real 
education and real experience to prepare for real life. 
After having traveled for sixty-two days over the Alas¬ 
kan path in search of gold, I was captured by a band of 
desperadoes and was forced to give up practically every¬ 
thing I had, except the education which I secured while 
attending the schools in the States. The desperadoes 
were under the command of a leader who is known and 
feared throughout Alaska. They were kind enough to 
let me keep some of my clothing and enough food to 
keep me alive until I could get back to Skagway. 

I had a perilous return, full of risks and hair-breadth 
escapes, and would have lost my life in a swollen stream 
if I had not been rescued by three men employed by 
the government. I returned to Skagway, however, 
sore in body, torn in spirit, and, I believe, a wiser and 
stronger man. I am now feeling good, am happy, and 
am getting along splendidly. 

Even in the midst of all of this experience, which has 
been enough to try any life, I find satisfaction in the 
effort and have had my faith in humanity enlarged 
rather than diminished. There is some satisfaction in 
knowing that the desperadoes had enough good in 
them to allow me to keep some of my best clothing and 
enough food to get back to Skagway. I believe that 
the thing which prompted these men to let me have this 
food and clothing is the thing that would have made 
them good citizens if they had had the same opportuni¬ 
ties I had. Of course, some people inherit tendencies that 
education will not overcome, but I am certain that if 
the leader of the gang had got the right kind of start in 
life he would have made a great citizen. The three 


INVISIBLE CAPITAL 


161 


men who rescued me came near losing their lives in 
order to save me. They simply knew that I was a 
human being, fighting for my life in an angry stream. 
There was something in them that prompted them to 
risk their lives in order to save me. These men had the 
same spirit our fathers had when they suffered and died 
for the establishment of our government. They have 
the same spirit the democratic community has when it 
makes real sacrifices for a proper education of its chil¬ 
dren. This is enough to make me an optimist and to 
increase my faith in the inherent nature of the human 
being and in the triumph of the American government. 

A few hours after I reached Skagway, a prominent 
citizen offered me a position at $3600 annually. On a 
four per cent basis this capitalized me at $90,000. It 
had never occurred to me before that I had an estate 
and that education has value that rises far above dol¬ 
lars. I am trying to do my work well in order to merit 
the recognition that has been extended to a stranger in 
a new country and in order that I may be worthy of 
you and my land. I really do not know what would 
have become of me if I had not attended school and 
secured an education. I have been thinking about it 
while far away from you, and have come to the con¬ 
clusion that, if it had not been for you and your militant 
attitude toward education, and if you had not sent me 
to school sometimes when I did not want to go, I would 
have drifted around and would never have given my¬ 
self the necessary training to meet the demands of this 
life. 

There are thousands of people on the streets of 
Skagway who have lost all of their material possessions 
and are really suffering from the lack of common neces- 


162 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


sities of life. Most of them are uneducated and not pre¬ 
pared for any kind of efficient work. Having had their 
experience on the path, I naturally feel deeply for them. 
You know, after all, it is necessary to suffer in order to 
enter fully into the life of those who suffer. There are 
a few people here who are inclined to hold these people 
responsible for their lack of training, but I do not feel 
this way about it, for many of them would have done 
better than I have, if they had had a father and a 
mother who took an interest in their education and who 
made, as you did, a proper estimate of its value in one’s 
life and its organic place in a Democracy. I told a 
citizen the other day that society was much to blame 
for every uneducated citizen in the States, and that 
these untrained lives are only the mirrors in which we 
see the indifference of the people toward education, the 
most vital thing in the land. Under the circumstances, 
I feel that the National Government should make an 
appropriation, which I understand it contemplates do¬ 
ing, to return these citizens to their homes. I be¬ 
lieve it should do this, and then see to it that not another 
illiterate citizen is grown in our free land. 

While in the States, I knew hundreds of men and 
women of ability who were indifferent in regard to their 
education. Many of them did not pursue their work 
further than the fourth grade, and but few took ad¬ 
vantage of higher education. I want you to tell the 
boys and the girls for me that there is one thing that 
can look up the barrel of a Winchester rifle and not sur¬ 
render, and that is education; that there is one thing 
that cannot be mortgaged and sold in front of a court¬ 
house, and that is education; that there is one thing 
that cannot be taken from them, even by a band of 


INVISIBLE CAPITAL 


163 


desperadoes on the Alaskan path, and that is educa¬ 
tion. There is a satisfaction in having something that 
cannot be taken from you, something that is stored in 
the vault of your life, and in knowing that you yourself 
are the desperado, the vault, the combination, and that 
the only thing that can open the vault and take away 
its possessions is an act of your own will. 

Tell Uncle Dick, who has always denied his boy edu¬ 
cational advantages, who has fought every school move¬ 
ment that required an expenditure of money, who has 
always put a few rusty dollars above living ideals and 
his corn crib above his country, that when he leaves 
this world, he had better leave his boy an education 
without a farm than to leave him a farm without an 
education. Many people do not seem to understand 
that a farm, a store, a bank, a bond, or any other ma¬ 
terial possession in the hands of ignorance is, after all, 
a kind of tragedy. Indeed, material possessions without 
spiritual and intellectual possessions become burdens 
upon the shoulder of the human being. Five hundred 
acres of land on the back of an ignorant farmer 
makes a slave. If Uncle Dick does not change his 
course, that farm of his will take wings after he is dead 
and fly out of the hands of his ignorant boy into the 
hands of some other man’s son who was interested in 
his child’s education and gave him a chance to develop 
not only his body but his mind and character. It 
seems to me that vitalized intelligence is the law of 
possession as well as of spiritual and commercial thrift. 

I shall write you frequently. Give my love to every¬ 
body, and tell Uncle Dick I always enjoyed those loud 
prayers of his while at church, but that I now fear his 
prayers will not prevail before the throne of God unless 


164 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


he opens up his purse, votes for the local school tax now 
pending in his community, and sees to it that his boy 
has a chance to get a real democratic education. 

Affectionately yours, 

Bill. 

Bill is now one of the foremost citizens of 
the West. He is capitalized at $800,000 on a 
four per cent basis. He is a most earnest ad¬ 
vocate of education and believes the hope of 
the world is in Democracy and in a system of 
education that gives every human being a 
square deal. He told a great assemblage of 
farmers in a western city the other day that 
the little farm forty yards square which was 
turned over to him by his father when he was 
ten years old, together with the religious train¬ 
ing of his home and the education he secured, 
have been the greatest factors in the making 
of his life. 


CHAPTERS XXI 

GOALS AND DETOURS 

In the growth of a Democracy the individual 
must receive inspiration, help, and leadership 
from the universal spirit of the civic whole. 
Democracy is the leader, the parent, the 
teacher, the friend of each individual unit in 
the whole. In the story following, Uncle Sam 
typifies Democracy, or the civic whole, and 
James the citizen who must be shown the ideal 
life in a Democracy. 

Uncle Sam went with James to the shoals 
of a beautiful lake to teach him to swim. 
He was pleased because James wanted to 
swim in order to be a useful citizen and be¬ 
cause he wanted to teach others to swim. 
James had a worthy goal and a worthy mo¬ 
tive. Uncle Sam told the people that James 
was making a real American beginning. 

After several weeks of earnest work in the 
shallow water something happened one day 
in James’s life that gave him great joy and 
thrilled his soul. He exclaimed, “The water 
held me up that time.” Uncle Sam told him 
that he was learning to swim and that every 

165 


166 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCEACY 


time one of his citizens learned to swim he 
could swim better himself. He said that he 
himself could feel something holding him up 
every time the water held up one of his 
citizens. He quoted Pascal, who said: “The 
multitude which does not reduce itself to 
unity is confusion; the unity which does not 
depend upon the multitude is tyranny.” He 
said that in order to avoid confusion it was 
necessary for his people to swim, and in 
order to avoid tyranny it was necessary for 
him to do all within his power to aid them in 
learning to swim. He emphasized that this 
is the law of unity and progress. 

James advanced rapidly until he could 
swim from fifty to sixty feet in the shallow 
water. About this time it seemed that he 
was not making satisfactory advancement 
and was apparently losing interest. He did 
not even seem to feel that the water would 
hold him up any more. Uncle Sam said that 
possibly James did not know that his life had 
reached the deep water and inherently de¬ 
sired to go forward. He said that James 
might be making invisible detours in his own 
life contrary to the law of progress, but that 
Rousseau said: “There is a period of life 
when we go back as we advance.” He be- 


GOALS AND DETOURS 167 

lieved that nature was preparing James for 
the larger experience. He quoted the words 
of Swift: “All the curves show great irregu¬ 
larity of advance. Progress is never uniform 
but always by jumps. The learner seems 
to make no gain for several days or even 
longer; then he takes a leap, perhaps to get 
a good grip and stay, or may be to drop back 
a little. But if he loses his hold, it is not for 
long, and he soon makes this higher level the 
starting point for new excursions.” 

Uncle Sam had seen people in all walks 
of life whose goal did not extend beyond the 
shoals, and he had noticed that they univer¬ 
sally lacked interest in their occupation. 
He knew that it was the nature of the soul to 
lose interest in its efforts while swimming in 
shallow creeks when one should be swimming 
in swift and wide rivers. He said: “James 
knows that he is swimming in water where 
he can at any time and without much effort 
put his toes on the bottom, and that is not 
what his life inherently desires.” Uncle Sam 
repeated the words of Sir William Temple: 
“A man that only translates shall never be a 
poet; nor a painter that only copies; nor a 
swimmer that always swims with bladders.” 
He decided that the gravel on the shoals and 


168 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

James’s toes must be separated. He knew, 
of course, that James would lose his life in 
the shallow water unless he saved it in the 
deep water, but he believed that James was 
making natural detours, and that with proper 
assistance and encouragement he would be¬ 
come a real American swimmer. He quoted 
the words of Oliver Wendell Holmes: “I 
find the great thing in this world is not so 
much where we stand, as in what direction 
we are moving.” Uncle Sam believed that 
James was headed in the right direction. 

Uncle Sam said that imagination, the spirit 
of adventure, deeper water, and responsibil¬ 
ity were necessary in order for one to become 
a great swimmer. He told James about many 
great men who were great swimmers; how 
they had commenced in the same way he had, 
and why it was necessary for him to swim 
in deep water. He swam far out into the deep 
water himself and told James that it was much 
finer out there than in the shoals. He said that 
there were thousands of citizens who were 
dabbling in the shoals because they were taught 
by people who could not swim themselves. 
James’s life was running over with interest and 
enthusiasm. He could hardly wait for the time 
to come when he should swim in the deep 


GOALS AND DETOURS 169 

water. He told his sister that he was going 
to be a great swimmer some day, and that he 
might even swim the English Channel. Uncle 
Sam said that James had a real imagination. 
He quoted the words of Dugald Stewart: 
“The faculty of imagination is the great 
spring of human activity, and the principal 
source of human improvement. As it de¬ 
lights in presenting to the mind scenes and 
characters more perfect than those which we 
are acquainted with, it prevents us from 
ever being completely satisfied with our pres¬ 
ent condition, or with our past attainments, 
and engages us continually in the pursuit of 
some untried enjoyment, or of some ideal 
excellence. Destroy this faculty, and the 
condition of man will become as stationary 
as that of the brutes.” 

Uncle Sam insisted that no swimmer would 
ever swim the English Channel in the future 
unless he swam it in the present, and that if 
James should swim the English Channel in 
the future, he would then want to swim across 
a still larger body of water. He said that 
this is the nature of the soul, of religion, of 
real education, of Democracy, and of all 
worthy things. He said that none of these 
would succeed unless they had the more 


170 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


abundant goal and made detours when de¬ 
tours were principles. He quoted Colton: 
“Men may have the gifts both of talent and 
of wit, but unless they have also prudence 
and judgment to dictate when, where, and 
how those gifts are to be exerted, the posses¬ 
sors of them will conquer only where nothing 
is to be gained, and be defeated where every¬ 
thing is to be lost; they will be outdone by 
men of less brilliant but more convertible 
qualifications, and whose strength, in the 
point, is not counterbalanced by any dispro¬ 
portion in another.” 

James commenced swimming in small cir¬ 
cles over the deep water, extending the area 
of the circles with each effort. He said that 
it was easier to swim in deep water than it 
was in the shallow water, and that when he 
swam in the deep water he could always hear 
it saying to him that it was over his head, 
but that it would hold him up and help him 
in becoming a great swimmer, if he would hold 
himself up and try to be a great swimmer. 
He said that when he was swimming in the 
shallow water it was always telling him to 
put his toes on the bottom. James increased 
his speed and the area of his circles rapidly. 
Uncle Sam said that James was making won- 


GOALS AND DETOURS 171 

derful progress and that he was going forward 
even while swimming in circles, and then he 
quoted words of Goethe: “Progress has not 
followed a straight ascending line, but a 
spiral rhythm of progress and retrogression 
of evolution and dissolution.” 

Nature was evidently pushing James for¬ 
ward, for he did not like the idea of starting 
at a given point and returning to the same 
place each time. He said that this was not 
going anywhere and that he wanted to get 
somewhere, even if he had to go forward by 
making detours and swimming in curves. 
James declared: “I am going to swim this 
deep and wide lake.” Uncle Sam was de¬ 
lighted and told James that this is what the 
great leaders of freedom did when they signed 
the Declaration of Independence. He quoted 
the words of Colton: “In all governments, 
there must of necessity be both the law and 
sword; laws without arms would give us not 
liberty, but licentiousness; and arms without 
laws would produce not subjection, but slav¬ 
ery. The law, therefore, should be unto the 
sword what the handle is to the hatchet; it 
should direct the stroke and temper the 
force.” 

Uncle Sam said that when the people talked 


172 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

about the brotherhood of man, about the day 
when war would be abolished from the earth, 
they were really swimming in circles, but 
that they were getting closer to the heart 
of Democracy and universal peace each day. 
He emphasized that the brotherhood of man 
must be achieved in the human heart and that 
after it is accomplished, laws and swords 
would be necessary to maintain it. He said 
he believed that Coleridge was right when he 
wrote: “As there is much beast and some 
devil in man, so there is some angel and some 
God in him. The beast and devil may be 
conquered, but in this life never wholly de¬ 
stroyed.” He believed that an international 
agreement in the interest of universal peace 
with the countries of the world would hasten 
the brotherhood of man and finally abolish 
war from the world. He said, however, that 
in order for America to reach this goal, it 
would be necessary for it to put its emphasis 
upon the development of the spiritual empire 
rather than upon the empire of force. He 
emphasized that this must be largely accom¬ 
plished through a system of education that will 
develop the body, mind, and heart of the 
people. He declared that universal education 
is the fundamental goal of Democracy. 


GOALS AJND DETOURS 173 

Uncle Sam was glad that James wanted to 
swim the lake. He got a boat and told James 
he would go with him and be near him, but 
that he must remember that he would not 
swim the lake unless he depended upon him¬ 
self and used in an effective way his talents 
and opportunities. He told James that if he 
should do anything for him that he could do 
for himself, it would injure his efforts to be¬ 
come an efficient swimmer. He assured him, 
however, that he would be swimming with 
him in sympathy and that he would help him 
if he really needed help. He said that a real 
American is a citizen who swims with every 
human being. He quoted the words of Beat- 
tie: “Let us cherish sympathy. It prepares 
the mind for receiving the impressions of vir¬ 
tue; and without it there can be no true 
politeness. Nothing is more odious than that 
insensibility which wraps a man up in him¬ 
self and his own concerns and prevents him 
being moved with either the joys or the sor¬ 
rows of another.” 

Uncle Sam and James started across the 
lake together. James was full of enthusiasm 
and thrills and swam better than he had at 
any time before. Uncle Sam was pleased with 
James because he had a goal to make, was will- 


174 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

ing to work, had a faith in his ability to swim 
the lake, and depended upon himself. When 
far out in the lake James exclaimed, in the 
spirit of a rising faith: 44 1 am going to swim 
the lake. I can feel my hands taking hold of 
the bank on the other side.” Uncle Sam told 
the people that James had a wonderful faith 
and that no man had ever reached a worthy 
goal unless he had a worthy faith. He said 
that one of his expert ball players told him 
that he had never failed to catch a ball when 
he felt the ball in his hands and had the thrills 
that come from catching the ball while it was 
still in the air. 

There was an island that prevented James 
from making a direct course across the lake. 
It was necessary for him to make a detour in 
order to reach his goal. Uncle Sam said that 
detours are sometimes necessary in the work 
of growing individuals and national life. He 
told about the many compromises it was 
necessary for the great men of the Consti¬ 
tutional Convention to make before they 
succeeded in submitting the American Con¬ 
stitution to the states for their ratification. 
He said that this was done in a few cases by 
overlooking principles, but that the great goal 
they reached justified all the detours they 


GOALS AND DETOURS 


175 


made. He emphasized, however, that detours 
which clashed with principles could not be 
justified, unless they saved and advanced 
humanity and liberty, and that even then they 
would become seeds of future strife. He said 
that when the American Constitutional Con¬ 
vention recognized slavery, it made a detour, 
from the viewpoint of individual freedom, 
contrary to the principles and ideals of Amer¬ 
ica, but in doing this it made possible the 
United States of America. He said that 
when Lincoln issued the Emancipation Procla¬ 
mation, he made a detour contrary to the fun- 
demental law of the land, but that it was done 
in the interest of human freedom. He em¬ 
phasized that one of these detours gave us the 
Union and the other saved it. He said that it 
would be as easy for James to swim across an 
island as it would be for him to advance Amer¬ 
ica contrary to the desires and the opinions of 
his people. He believed that it would be 
better for him to take thirty years to reach a 
' goal and to have the majority of the people 
with him when he reached it than it would be 
to reach it in five years and not have the 
people with him when he reached it. James 
swam the lake and declared that he could 
swim it two times without stopping. He 


176 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

wanted to swim a larger body of water. His 
goal was still beyond. Uncle Sam said that 
Democracy’s goal is still beyond. 

Life without a goal is like a ship at sea with¬ 
out a compass and without a port to make. 
Every time life moves forward and upward, 
the goal of life moves forward and upward. 
Democracy’s success in reaching a worthy goal 
depends upon the success of the people in 
reaching a worthy goal. What helps the 
people helps Democracy, and what helps 
Democracy helps the people. Neither can 
realize and possess the democratic goal of life 
in the same way as we would construct and 
possess a wooden box. One is spiritual; the 
other is material. One is always in the future; 
the other may be realized in the present. One 
is made in a carpenter’s shop and the other in 
the soul. One is standardized and capable of 
immediate interpretation; the other is an 
ideal that is ahead of us and travels as fast 
as we do, requiring advancing standards, new 
interpretations, and democratic detours. If 
life should overtake its goal, it would be like a 
stagnant and diseased river, full of poison and 
pollution. “Man can never come up to his 
ideal standard — it is the nature of the im¬ 
mortal spirit to raise that standard higher and 


GOALS AND DETOURS 


177 


higher as it goes from strength to strength, 
still upward and onward.” The real goal of 
the soul and of Democracy is the more abun¬ 
dant life. 


CHAPTER XXII 

HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 

If we want ideas, we must fish where we can get 
them. 

Human souls are blown to the sea by the 
winds of the spirit. 

If a citizen in a community is down, a part of 
the community is down. 

Killing a fly sometimes saves the life of a 
child. 

Ignorance is always crowded. The ignorant 
man is at all times tramping on the heels of an 
ignorant man, his own. 

Turn the human gun on the knocker and fire 
progressive ideas at him. 

Providence is not to be blamed, if we should 
carry our coffins in our spirits. 

There are citizens who seem to prefer to use 
bean poles and rotten lines, and yank for bone- 
heads. 

Democracy’s idealization of education is the 
result of the law of self-preservation. 

178 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 179 


The value of a citizen is measured in the terms 
of thinking and acting. 

If our motives are not vitalized with service, our 
deeds will not interpret Democracy. 

The democratized school creates winds that 
blow souls seeking an education into its own doors. 

The fisherman has a better appetite and di¬ 
gestion and more spiritual and economic life when 
he angles for his fish. 

A citizen of Democracy is a dipper to be used 
in pouring spiritual and economical thrift into the 
community. 

The angler who uses one rod will catch more fish 
than one who uses two or more. 

Democracy values a good citizen for the same 
reason that the heart desires good digestion and 
red blood. 

We take care of our government by taking care 
of ourselves, and by helping others. 

A good democrat is one who loves his country 
more than his party, and his party more than 
his job. 

The real test of the patriotism of the rich man 
can be determined by his efforts to enlist his pocket 
book for his country. 


i . 


180 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

The spiritual and material community will 
mount high through self-regeneration. 

Good churches, schools, and roads are fun¬ 
damental necessities to economic and social effi¬ 
ciency. 

The magical powers of progress are constructive 
brains and sound consciences. 

The public road that runs through a political 
jockey alley is almost certain to be low in the 
middle and full of holes. 

When real education enters a school, real money 
enters the bank. 

Our country will not spend too much money for 
education when every dollar expended produces a 
dollar’s worth of Democracy. 

It is the duty of every American to plant more, 
produce more, save more, and give more. 

No man can make too much money if he keeps 
in mind what he owes his country and meets his 
obligations punctually. 

Old Glory unfurls its sacred folds to the liberty 
winds when the fisherman of the great sea makes 
a large catch. 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 181 


Education is interested in everything that De¬ 
mocracy needs, and Democracy is interested in 
everything that education needs. 

The average community needs more limestone 
and less political brimstone. 

A citizen who is not as free as the mountain air 
is not likely to reach the mountain top. 

Human growth will cease when the people rely 
on the government for happiness and prosperity. 

Every product of the hand has a dual existence. 
It is first produced in the mind and then in the out¬ 
ward world. 

It is not formal organization that is most vital 
in the development of Democracy, but the life that 
produces organization. 

The citizen who sits in front of America’s fire¬ 
place, enjoys its fires, eats its roasted apples, and 
criticizes America should move to Russia or some¬ 
where else. 

Any community that is good enough to live in is 
good enough to fight for, and any citizen who is 
not willing to do this should move out of the com¬ 
munity. 

The mudhole in the middle of the road that has 
been traveled for months by the teacher and the 
pupils of the school is a bold challenge to the work 
of the school. 


182 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


The best administered government is one that 
governs the masses by aiding the individual in 
governing himself. 

The development of Democracy depends more 
than anything else upon the training of the rural 
children, most of whom will become tillers of the 
soil and makers of homes, the basis of all wealth 
and progress. 

It is not necessary to sink a fleet in order to be a 
hero. It is not necessary to have a million dollars 
in order to be rich. Greatness depends upon 
character. 

When the people know that they are getting 
good government and good service, they will not 
object to paying for good government and good 
service. 

The normal human being is positive, never neu¬ 
tral in his desire to grow, to be free, to possess, and 
to interpret the unknown. 

W T e can sharpen a pencil by putting it into a 
pencil sharpener and turning a crank, but we 
cannot make a citizen, a school, or a community 
in that way. 

A free nation will never be greater than her 
citizens, her citizens will never be greater than her 
schools, and her schools will never be greater than 
her teachers. 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 183 


Men are frequently slaves in chains. They are 
victims of devices, systems, and traditions riveted, 
by human machines without their protest. 

Good government depends upon preserving in¬ 
dividuality while traveling through the pathless 
woods from the smaller life to the larger life. 

The school and the community are tied to¬ 
gether by the spiritual and economic laws of life. 
If the school lives, the community lives; if the 
school dies, the community dies. 

It is hard for a citizen to have faith and effec¬ 
tiveness at a time when he realizes that he has a 
big responsibility and an inadequate preparation. 

Democratic education is the only thing that will 
turn a small life into a larger life, a small business 
into a larger business, and dead communities into 
larger communities. 

It is not the perfect ear of corn we admire so 
much as the glorified man in the ear of corn. We 
interpret the ear of corn and receive its blessings 
and benedictions, and then we seek the man who 
grew the ear of corn and learn his ways and ideas. 

If all the people fished in political ponds instead 
of larger waters, we would have want and woe, an¬ 
archy and Bolshevism instead of plenty, freedom, 
and Democracy. 


184 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

I like to sit around my own mental hearthstone 
and hold communion with universal guests, that 
company of ideas that meet and mingle in the 
arena of my soul. I like to shake hands with them, 
talk with them, make friends of them, and chal¬ 
lenge them. 

The teacher is the transmitter through whom 
every dollar appropriated for education must be 
transmuted into life. If the transmitter is wrong, 
the child will not hear. 

The people are not concerned about what one 
politician thinks about another so much as they 
are concerned about a government that will give 
every human being a square deal. 

When the people understand that education 
reaches every item of life and advances every 
spiritual and industrial effort, they will cease to 
show any indifference about education and will 
advance it for the same reason that they read a 
good book or eat a wholesome meal. 

The nation will have a new birth when the 
people experience self-discovery, assume the re¬ 
sponsibility of American citizenship, and use their 
inexhaustible spiritual and material opportunities. 

The red-blooded American who feels the cur¬ 
rent of freedom in his own life and stands like a 
sentinel on guard, ready to defend his country at 
any cost in time of peace and in time of war, is our 
first asset. 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 185 


The real American recognizes the work of the 
school as one in the interest of the general wel¬ 
fare, and the schoolhouse becomes a “meeting 
place where the school and the community get 
together and consider things — things political, 
things social, things educational, and things in¬ 
dustrial.” 

It is extremely dangerous, if not unwise, for 
public funds to reach a community ahead of au¬ 
thorized administrators who are qualified in vi¬ 
sion, character, and mind to transmute them into 
efficient life. 

It is a reflection upon the camera of the soul for 
it to be necessary to produce a moving picture 
from the scenes of one’s daily environments and 
throw these scenes upon the material canvas at a 
picture show in order to create an interest in these 
scenes. 

It gives me a thrill to feel that I have as much 
power with a few dollars in my pocket, in this 
country of civic consent, as the millionaire with 
a few millions in his pocket. When we enter the 
voting booth, Democracy equalizes our power. 

A dead thing cannot produce a live thing. A 
dead school cannot, by ringing the bell and calling 
the people together, organize in one evening a live 
civic, social, and industrial center. Successful cen¬ 
ters of school activity are founded upon human 
nature and must be grown. 


186 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

The man who becomes prosperous in a com¬ 
munity by taking advantage of its spiritual and 
material opportunities, but refuses to make just 
material contributions to its efforts to be a worthy 
community, is like the man with a pocketful of 
money who refuses to buy a ticket but sees a base¬ 
ball game by looking through the crack of the high 
fence that encloses the athletic field. 

Democratic government is a mirror in which we 
should see the people. Unfortunately, however, 
when we look into the mirror, we frequently can¬ 
not see the real people, because they are obscured 
by the politicians. 

The democratized school is a great spirit that 
interferes with the boy at the minnow hole by 
offering him eyes that will enable him to see the 
sea and by prompting him to go to the sea with a 
self-propulsion to catch big life. 

Wealth is a state of ideals rather than a state of 
the pocketbook. A person may have one dollar in 
his pocket and be a richer and better American than 
the man who has a million. This is true, even if it 
is difficult for some of us to believe it on bill day. 

Whenever the school makes two ears of corn 
grow where one grew before, it must at the same 
time, if it would advance Democracy, make two 
ideals grow where one grew before. A democratic 
ideal has never had its beginning in a corn crib, 
unless the corn crib was born in an ideal. 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 187 


Knowing that this is my country and that I am 
a joint owner, that I am in it and it is in me, es¬ 
tablishes in my life a feeling of deep personal re¬ 
sponsibility. Knowing that it is your country 
broadens my sympathies and responsibilities and 
emphasizes the importance of every human being. 
Knowing that it is our country develops a common 
interest, a spirit of unity, of brotherhood, of de¬ 
pendence and independence. 

Saying nothing of spiritual values, the training 
of teachers for service and prompting trustees and 
boards of education to employ trained teachers is 
an economic proposition that no State can afford 
to ignore. 

The greater community is coming in obedience 
to the law of Democracy, not through the mechan¬ 
ical assent of man to certain outward programs but 
through the ascent of man to the stature of the 
great teacher, to righteousness and intelligence. 

There is a great difference between making a 
life and a living. I know a citizen who had four 
hundred acres of rich land who did neither. I 
know another citizen who had four hundred acres 
of land who made a living but not a life, and I 
know another who had ten acres of land who made 
both a life and a living. 

We have too frequently removed the school 
from the people instead of taking it to them. We 
have made it remote rather than found it in our 


188 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

lives. We have confined it within the walls of the 
schoolhouse instead of pushing it to the utmost 
limits of the community. 

Occupation develops the citizen, and the 
citizen develops occupation, provided a healthy 
companionship has been formed through a spirit¬ 
ualization of occupation. It is natural for a feeling 
of degradation and inferiority to follow the efforts 
of a citizen who has not spiritualized his work. 

I cannot see much difference in assassinating 
a man with a Winchester rifle and killing him with 
an old disease-breeding outhouse. I cannot see 
much difference in putting poison in your neigh¬ 
bor’s cup of coffee and in throwing fecal matter 
containing the germs of death where they will get 
into your neighbor’s drinking water. 

Citizens who are not interested in the affairs of 
the government too often treat the competent and 
incompetent, the honest and dishonest public offi¬ 
cial in the same way. They usually regard both 
of them as dishonest. Honest public officials have 
frequently taken earnest steps with a view of serv¬ 
ing their country, of building up the standards of 
living, to find in the end that they were helpless in 
accomplishing their ideals on account of not 
having the support of a constructive public senti¬ 
ment. 

The speculator who, in order to make a few 
more millions of dollars during the war, cornered 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 189 


the market of foodstuffs of this country and 
through unscrupulous manipulation of the mar¬ 
kets took food from starving mouths and endan¬ 
gered the fight for freedom, should in my opinion 
be treated by this government as a traitor and 
subjected to a court martial. I do not believe 
that the preacher in Washington was wrong when 
he said that men of this character should be shot 
at the base of Washington’s monument. 

The people too frequently think of education as 
something remote, something foreign to their own 
needs, something that concerns the other in¬ 
dividual, the other home, the other community, 
and the other state. Education is the most per¬ 
sonal thing in a free country, and the extent that 
people have failed to respond to its needs is meas¬ 
ured by the failure of the school to become a 
positive factor in the social and industrial develop¬ 
ment of the community. 

The rains that fall, the winds that blow, the 
lightnings and thunders incident to earthly con¬ 
ditions typify things that transpire within the 
zones of my own soul. My outlook upon life is 
dark and gloomy, or bright and radiant, in propor¬ 
tion as I look outward and downward and inward 
and upward. 

There lived in the community of my early life 
a citizen who was an expert in the use of the sling. 
It is said that whenever he went hunting, his 


190 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


friends would count the number of stones in the 
pouch, and when he returned, would count the 
number remaining unused and in this way deter¬ 
mine the number of squirrels he had killed. When¬ 
ever the community has this kind of confidence in 
a leader, it will rally behind him and assist him in 
his work. 

The schools assist in solving the economic and 
social problems of the home and of the state by 
increasing the productive capacity of the people 
and by developing a citizenship whose good be¬ 
havior will reduce waste to a minimum. The com¬ 
munity that does not have a good school because 
it thinks it is too poor to have a good school must 
learn that the reason it is too poor to have a good 
school is because it does not have a good school. 
The community that refuses to make material 
contributions and to vote a just tax for the sup¬ 
port of the school is, under the law of economic 
progress, a pauper. 

Society has been kind to me. It stood by my 
side when I was a helpless little piece of spirit and 
flesh and protected me, but the greatest blessing it 
ever bestowed upon me was a Christian home 
during my childhood days where honor ruled and 
industry, obedience, virtue, and service were 
crowned through the influence of a noble father 
and a loving mother who believed and taught by 
precept and example that the hope of a free people 
depended largely upon their homes. 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 191 


In the sense I speak, the greatest political party 
that has ever been conceived by the thought of 
man is the public school system. Its mission 
makes it an organic part of political life. If prop¬ 
erly administered, it will advance the principles 
and ideals of freedom and never be in accord with 
civic corruption. 

Democracy has its own way of doing things, 
and it is the best way. We have been thinking, 
however, that it would be a good thing if it were 
possible to segregate all of the germs of preventable 
diseases and all of the idlers, knockers, and gos- 
sipers on a lonely island and let the battle go on 
between them. It has been ordained, however, 
that they shall be consumed by the gradual fires 
of Democracy. 

It has been intensely interesting to watch the 
boy of the corn club go behind his one acre of corn 
and assume the responsibility of preparing the soil, 
selecting the seed corn, and at the same time chal¬ 
lenging the world to a contest for the largest yield. 
This responsibility makes him a leader, creates 
the power of initiative, and makes him an impor¬ 
tant citizen in the life of a community. He is so 
busily engaged that he forgets to be an idler or 
even a bad boy. 

Any citizen who tries to improve the spiritual 
and economic affairs of a country by withholding 
support from better homes, better teachers, better 
schools, better health, better agriculture, better 


192 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

roads, and all other things that make a productive 
citizenship, proceeds on the theory that the way 
to improve a house is to tear it down, that the way 
to improve the life and business of a community 
is to cut off the currents of life. 

Before I was old enough to be trusted to load a 
gun, my father would give me a loaded single- 
barrel gun and allow me to go to the woods to kill 
a squirrel. The squirrels did not take me seriously, 
because they knew I was a poor marksman and 
had only one load. After my using the load with¬ 
out getting game, the squirrels would come near 
me and say: “Go home, get a supply of good am¬ 
munition, learn to load the gun and how to shoot, 
and then we will keep out of your way and have 
some respect for you.” There are a great many 
squirrel hunters of this kind in this country who 
call themselves teachers and leaders. 

The country is full of examples showing that 
the school that gets into the life of the people and 
helps them to solve their social and industrial 
problems is about the most contagious thing in a 
democratic community. Give the people through 
the schools more life, and they will have more 
money and will support the school with more life 
and more money. The failure of the people to un¬ 
derstand the material value of education is one of 
the greatest barriers that confronts the work of 
educating the masses. Education pays two divi¬ 
dends, one in an improved citizenship and one in 
material dividends. 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 193 


The successful angler values nature. He will 
avoid trying to force the large game fish to accept 
his ways, until it shows an inclination to be led. 
The fish that does not have its own way some of 
the time is not worth catching, and the angler 
who does not have his way some of the time is a 
poor fisherman. The angler who does not under¬ 
stand this will not succeed in leading a community. 

We must have a vision of the future, and if we 
would avoid mistakes, we must be able to hear the 
conversation and conclusions of a group of brainy 
and patriotic citizens when they talk about our 
achievements five hundred or a thousand years 
from now. When considered in the terms of demo¬ 
cratic principles, whatever is right in a Democracy 
today will be right in the future. Methods and 
programs change, but principles are as enduring 
as eternity itself. 

The school is a pioneer that reaches the indus¬ 
trial world through the world of mind. The effi¬ 
cient school precedes thinking capacity, thinking 
capacity precedes earning capacity, and earning 
capacity precedes industrial thrift. Human 
thought is the ticker that tells what every inch of 
property is worth. Extend the vision of the mind, 
and you broaden the fields of commerce; build up 
the efficiency of the school, and you quicken indus¬ 
trial life. Educated citizens and a sane commerce 
travel together. A poverty of schools makes a 
treacherous commerce. 


194 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 

It is true that efforts to promote public business 
are frequently the victims of fixed customs, of self¬ 
ishness, of neighborhood factions, of partisan and 
depraved politics, and of many other things that 
make it difficult for a worthy public servant to ac¬ 
complish constructive work. This state of af¬ 
fairs has, without doubt, crippled efficiency, cost 
Democracy millions and millions of dollars, and 
made the execution of public work extremely diffi¬ 
cult and discouraging. 

All of the enemies of this country are not mil¬ 
lionaires. They can be found in the shop, on the 
farm, and in every other endeavor of life. I know 
a citizen who has an elegant home with modern 
equipment, five hundred acres of as rich land as 
can be found in this country, ten or twelve thou¬ 
sand dollars worth of fine stock, great crops, and 
other things all paid for. His barn is worth three 
or four times the value of the country schoolhouse. 
He has concern about the condition of his cattle 
and the amount he will get out of them but refuses 
to vote for a small public-school tax to help edu¬ 
cate the children of his community. He puts his 
barn above the schoolhouse and his cattle above 
the children. He puts his bank account above his 
flag. 

Universal progress begins and ends with the soil. 
Improved agriculture is a fundamental proposition 
and one of monumental importance to every citi¬ 
zen in the nation. The development of our coun¬ 
try depends largely upon the success of the farmer, 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 195 


the most important citizen in the land. I believe 
in every sane and democratic effort in the interest 
of rural uplift and in a policy that will aid in the 
dissemination of agricultural information among 
the masses, in increasing the productive capacity 
of the people, and in establishing cooperative mar¬ 
kets for the products of their labor. Most of 
America needs more waving wheat and alfalfa 
fields and fewer wavering politicians. Intelligent 
agriculture is the only thing that will put small 
agriculture out of business. 


Indeed, America is a land of optimism. The 
golden gates of opportunity swing wide open. It 
is a land of milk and honey, but we shall never 
get the milk until we have men who can do the 
milking, and we shall never get the honey until 
we have human bees to make it. Our unworked 
and undeveloped spiritual and industrial fields 
are calling for men of brain, brawn, and character 
who are willing to make a trial of leadership. We 
should not forget that the responsibility of owner¬ 
ship falls heavily upon us, and that our children 
are entitled to their share of the wealth of qur 
fields, hills, and mountains, and to an opportunity 
to become leaders and workers in the social and 
industrial fields. There are American boys of the 
finest human stock who are unable to read and 
write, who may be in need of the comforts of life, 
and who are today working in great coal mines, 
in industrial plants, and on great farms that were 
formerly owned by their fathers. The only way 


196 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


we can give the child a square industrial deal is to 
give him a square educational deal, and the only 
way we can give him a square educational deal is 
to support a system of education that will reach 
every child in the land. 

Democracy salutes the little schoolhouse on the 
hill as the temple of liberty. It salutes the real 
teacher who rings the bell and calls the children 
to books as a nobleman who gives his life for his 
country. It salutes the layman who goes behind 
the school as a hero in time of peace, who plants 
the American flag upon the hills of liberty. 
Democracy calls for more life. Education seeks to 
create more. Let us then resolve to have a type 
of education that will enable the people to keep 
step with the onward march of Democracy. 

We shall never stop the leak that flows from 
the school fund until the educational conscience 
is awakened and the people share a larger respon¬ 
sibility for good schools; until parents cease to 
keep their children out of school without legitimate 
reasons; until they regard the selection of the 
school trustee of as much as or more importance 
to the community than the selection of a governor; 
until we develop a strong, stable teaching profes¬ 
sion, pay better salaries, and require better teach¬ 
ers, demand better service, and appreciate better 
service, and until the school is removed from 
personal, from neighborhood, from sectarian, from 
all forms of politics. 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 197 


I knew the mortal body that was buried in this 
grave. It wassthe home of a great soul. But the 
spirit took its flight without knowing its own pow¬ 
ers. This grave marks the last resting place of a 
citizen who was intended by God to be free, but he 
died a slave without having lived in the sunlight 
of inspired thought. It was intended that the uni¬ 
verse only should be the boundary of his activity 
and influence, but he constructed a prison that 
confined him and impoverished his usefulness. If 
society had knocked at the door of his soul in early 
life by offering him real education, he would have 
been one of the great citizens of this land. 

The most vital question before the country 
is one looking toward rural improvement and 
efficiency. We have a gigantic rural inheritance 
and opportunity. We have the climate, the 
showers, the sunshine, the soil, and the people, 
but we are not producing and living enough. 
Many of our farm homes are in need of the neces¬ 
sities of life and modern equipment and improve¬ 
ment. Many of our noble women are subjected to 
biting hardships, and the children are deprived 
of educational advantages that will prepare them 
for their chosen work. The remedy is in a system 
of education that will reach everybody and im¬ 
prove these conditions. 

A burglar stood between two homes during the 
late hours of the night. The inhabitants of each 
were sound asleep. The doors and windows of one 


198 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


of the houses were locked and bolted, and the head 
of the household slept with a big pistol under his 
pillow. The doors and windows of the other were 
open, and the head of the household had no 
weapon. The burglar said that he entered the 
locked and protected home because it called him a 
dirty thief and threatened his life, while the other 
expressed a confidence in humanity, even in a 
burglar. The thing that made him enter the pro¬ 
tected home is the handle the real leader uses in 
moving a community. 

Community growth can be advanced by 
prompting the people to secure good books, maga¬ 
zines, and helpful literature of all kinds and by in¬ 
fluencing them to develop a reading and thinking 
habit; by encouraging public meetings designed 
to stimulate community ideals, cooperation, and 
thrift; by fostering the home, the greatest in¬ 
fluence in a Democracy, protecting it through 
legislation, and aiding in its efforts to have effi¬ 
ciency; by making the community strong in pa¬ 
triotic life, in its respect for law, and for the rule 
of honor, and so free from sectarian bias and big¬ 
otry that it will be an ideal soil for the growth of 
American citizens. 

The citizen is the dynamo that turns the wheels 
of progress and determines the conduct of the 
government. Nothing has ever been accomplished 
by human hands in the outward world that did not 
begin in some human being. That bridge was 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 199 

burned by the incendiary before the blaze was 
witnessed by the physical eye. That restaurant 
was blown up before the dynamite was placed 
under the building. That citizen was shot before 
the report of the gun was heard by the physical 
ear. That ballot box was mutilated before the 
voter entered the booth. I am emphasizing that 
the community’s house will be in bad order until 
the soul’s house is put in order by Christian edu¬ 
cation. 


There are many educational leaders and teach¬ 
ers who are giving every inch of their lives and 
physical strength to the work of educating the 
masses, who realize that before teachers can suc¬ 
ceed in the great work of leading the people they 
must be free themselves, and that in order to en¬ 
joy professional freedom they must experience an 
intellectual and professional baptism. They be¬ 
lieve that Democracy should demand better-paid 
and better-educated teachers, teachers who wear 
the whole professional helmet. They believe that 
every child is entitled to a qualified teacher, and 
that the professional deadwood should be con¬ 
sumed by the flames of public sentiment and by 
the fire of the teaching profession. These teachers, 
however, have a right to expect that, if they con¬ 
centrate and consecrate their lives upon the altars 
of service and make liberal expenditures of time 
and money for preparation, the citizenship of our 
country will recognize the work of a true teacher 
in a free government and will show its appreciation 


200 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


by offering him an opportunity to prepare for his 
chosen work by paying salaries in keeping with 
the expense of preparation and the cost of proper 
living. 

Democracy sees the world no longer as a di¬ 
vided fragment — a disconnected series of spheres, 
but as a single world, as a single sphere, in which 
there is no higher or lower. The citizen pur¬ 
suing any honorable endeavor who has the power 
of self-control and is a master of his task, is in 
America our sole aristocrat. 

Democracy looks within before writing an 
epitaph. It appeared on the deck of the Olympia, 
saluted Dewey, declared to the world that without 
him there would have been no Manila victory. It 
did not stop there. It went down into the hold 
of the Olympia, saluted John Whitaker, who in a 
temperature of 130 degrees, shoveled coal into 
the engine; and then came back on the deck and 
announced to the world that without John 
Whitaker, too, there would not have been a 
Manila victory. That is democracy. It exalts 
learning, piety, and service. 

The school system exists for no other purpose 
except to make good citizens. The work of making 
men, of transmuting dollars into life, into ideals, 
into freedom, of giving them wings, and making 
them messengers of peace, is the greatest work 
delegated to the hands of men. The school system 


HILLTOP EPIGRAMS AND PARAGRAPHS 201 

is a patriotic organization that seeks to make men. 

A better citizenship is its creed. This makes its 
work universal, establishing a common ground 
upon which all can unite in the interest of effi¬ 
ciency. 


When the teachers stop discrediting their own 
profession by incompetency, by apologizing for 
being teachers, by acting as hirelings, instead 
of servants of Democracy, the public school will 
cease to be treated indifferently and the teaching 
profession will rise to that dignity and exert that 
influence that will command the respect of the 
people. I walked up to a leading educator recently 
and said: “You are nothing but a teacher, just a 
teacher. You can’t do anything except teach a 
little and you can’t do that very well. Your 
services are not needed outside of the schoolroom, 
because you are nothing more than a teacher. 
You somehow look to me like a kind of ‘Imper¬ 
sonal It.’ ” In speaking to my friend in this 
way, I fear I was illustrating what sometimes 
seems to be the attitude of the public mind 
toward the average teacher. I have never 
apologized for being a teacher. The privilege 
of being a teacher is enough honor for a lifetime. 
If the profession will forgive me for the feeble 
efforts I have made, I will try to do better. 
Yet I fully appreciate that I can never con!- 
tribute as much honor to the teaching profession 
as this noble and beautiful professional life 
has contributed to me in permitting me to enter 


202 EDUCATION: THE BASIS OF DEMOCRACY 


its wide domain of opportunity and service. 
I have, however, gone far enough into the 
teaching profession to regard the teacher who 
does not make a reasonable effort to exalt the 
thought of teaching in his own life and who is 
ashamed to own that he is a teacher, as a pro¬ 
fessional hypocrite, a traitor to a cause that 
is as high as heaven. 

It is our duty to sanctify this great hill by 
hard study; by expressing its harmony, its order, 
its articulation, its saneness, and its stateliness 
in our lives; by seeing to it that its nobility 
is not marred by a single mark or desecrated in 
any other way; by making the beautiful sun¬ 
rises and sunsets which we shall witness from 
this hill, the rising of a soul in a world of promise 
and opportunity and the setting of a soul amidst 
the splendors of a life well lived; and by making 
this beautiful physical panorama that we shall 
witness from this hill-top and from classroom 
windows a spiritual panorama to be transmuted 
into life, and, finally, through a patriotic use of 
things spiritual and things material, unlock the 
door that confines an imprisoned self and allow 
a new and greater citizen to step forth — a bless¬ 
ing to man, a servant of God. 
































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